Pokemon Mystery Dugeon: Red Rescue Team
by Archeops567
Summary: In an untamed world crawling with feral beasts in an all-but extinct civilisation, two young Pokémon will find themselves on a collision course with mythical monsters, and those who dare to frequent with them. "I am a monster, you say?" The creature grinned, showing its long, bloodstained fangs. "If I am a monster, then so are you."
1. Chapter 1: The Quiz

**Hello, readers. This is Archeops567 here. Now, since this is my first Fanfiction: R &R. Criticism is allowed, and I don't own Pokémon, or Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team. Be harsh with any grammatical or spelling errors. Tell me. I will welcome them. As a warning, this story is going to be full of twists.**

 **Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team**

 **Chapter 1: The Quiz.**

*Her mind went blank.*

 **FLASH!**

 _What? Am I...dreaming?_ __ _Why am I here? The last thing I remember is a Ho-Oh, and then... then... What happened then?_

 _Wait._

 _Did I... did I... die?_

*She opened her eyes. Blackness. It blinded her.*

 _Who_ _am I?_ What _am I? Where is this place?_

 _ **Welcome!**_

 _Huh?_

 _ **This portal, in a pocket beyond time and space, leads to the world of Pokémon!**_

 _I'm dead, in a place beyond time and space, next to a portal leading to the Pokémon world? I'm ready to wake up now!_

 _ **You aren't dreaming. So get serious. You are going to-**_

 _Yes?_

 _ **I can't tell you that without breaking**_

 _ **The fourth wall**_

 _ **B) The plot**_

 _ **So you're going to have to remain in the dark until all is revealed.**_

 _Heh. "All is revealed." Do you know how cliché that is?_

 _ **I didn't make up this speech...**_

 _ **But before I can let you through, I have a few questions for you.**_

 _Questions? Uh... ok..._

 _ **I want you to answer them sincerely.**_

 _Sincerely?_

 _ **Truthfully.**_

 _Ok, I can do that._

 _ **Are you ready?**_

 _Yes._

 _ **To be the very best? Like no-one ever was?**_

 _Where did_ that _come from?_

 _ **A stupid children's cartoon about Pokémon. The protagonist is an idiot.**_

 _Oh._ That.

 _ **Exactly.**_

 _ **Ok... let the interview begin!**_

 _Took you long enough..._

*Different colours pulsed and flashed across her vision.*

 _Nice._

 _ **Glad you like it. Now. Tell me.**_

 _Is this the interview?_

 _ **Yes.**_

 _Ok._

 _ **A test is coming up. How do you study for it? Do you:**_

 _ **Study hard.**_

 _ **At the last second.**_

 _ **Ignore it and play.**_

 _I'd study as hard as I could!_

 _ **Can you focus on something you like?**_

 _ **Yes or No?**_

 _Definitely yes._

 _ **When the going gets tough, do you get going?**_

 _ **Yes or No?**_

 _Yes. I'm not weak. I once walked seven miles with no break._ And _I had lung problems._

 _ **Good on you.**_

 _ **There is a bucket. If you put water in it, how high will you fill it?**_

 _ **Full.**_

 _ **Half.**_

 _ **A little.**_

 _What's the point in filling it up a little bit? I'd fill it up full!_

 _Just what is the point of these questions?_

 _ **I believe**_ **I'm** _ **the one asking the questions, not you!**_

 _Sorry, sorry._

 _ **It's the summer holidays! Where would you like to go?**_

 _ **The beach!**_

 _ **Spas.**_

 _ **Anywhere.**_

 _The beach? Too many people. Spas? You can't swim in them. Anywhere? YES! I'd just wander around town._

 _ **Pretend you're going bungee jumping for the first time. Since it's scary, you decide to test the jump with a doll. And the cord snaps! Would you take the jump anyway?**_

 _Are you completely_ insane _?! That would be utter_ suicide!FUCK, _NO!_

 _ **I was just asking...**_

 _Are we done yet?_

 _ **Not quite. One last question. Are you a boy or a girl?**_

 _*sighs* I. Am. A. Fuking. Bloody._ Girl!

 _ **There is no need to swear. I just need to know your gender in order to get the correct results for this test.**_

Fine.

 _ **I have assessed your answers. So.**_ _ **you appear to be...**_

 _Yes?_

 _ **The hardy type.**_

 _Well, I am stubborn and tough._

 _ **You do you homework diligently,-**_

 _Yep._

 _ **...And you know how to eat properly.**_

 _That... That... That is... just bizarre._

 _ **You have strong willpower that lets you complete tasks, however tough.**_

 _That's me all over. In a nutshell._

 _ **You can also be stubborn to the point of feuding with friends... Nothing will go right for you when you're irritated,**_

 _*Sighs* It's all true... I wish it wasn't._

 _ **So learn to laugh it off.**_

 _Thanks for the advice, but I can't change my personality._

 _ **A hardy person like you should be...**_

 _Yes?_

 _ **The Pokémon Treecko!**_

 _WHAT?!_

 _A_ hardy girl _should be a_ Pikachu _! Voice, VOICE! You've screwed up massively! Bulbapedia-_

 _ **Fancy staying here**_ **forever** _ **?**_

 _..._

 _No, no, I'm fine._

 _ ***Smirks smugly* I thought so. This is the final step.**_

 _Yes?_

 _ **Who would you like to have as a partner?**_

 _A...partner? Is this Team Rocket or something?_

 _ **Nope. Not them.**_

 _ **Choose the Pokémon who you want as your partner from this group.**_

 _Charmander._

 _Squirtle._

 _Pikachu._

 _Totodile._

 _Cyndaquil._

 _Torchic._

 _Mudkip._

 _Oooh...so many choices..._

 _Hmm...I choose..._

 _Charmander!_

 _ **What is your partners nickname?**_

 _A nickname? It's... um... Blaze._

 _ **Is the name Blaze ok?**_

 _Why yes. Yes it is. His name is Blaze!_

 _ **Ok! We're all set! Let's get you into the world of Pokémon! Go for it!**_

 _Ok._

 _ **By the way, I'll be removing your memory of this event.**_

 _WHAT?! Why would you-?!_

 _ ***Smirks evilly* Because I don't want you to.**_

 _Don't want me to_ what _? Hello? HELLO?!_

 **And there it is! The first chapter is complete! In-game, I am in Magma Cavern, and since this is a PMD Fanfiction with twists, I chose to change what Pokémon I am, and since in-game, I'm actually a Pikachu. :)! As to why I chose Treecko... it will be explained...in the sequel, Pokémon: Rebellion, an Omega Ruby Nuzlocke.**


	2. Chapter 2: Talking Pokemon!

**Static, thanks for the review. I have decided to change the title of the sequel to this. I don't know exactly what it (the title) will be yet. Anyway, I don't own Pokémon.**

 **Anyway, as a personal goal, I've decided that I would update Chapter 2 on 17.7.15. The day the summer holidays start. Happy holidays, everyone!**

 **Chapter 2: Talking Pokémon?!**

Her mind was foggy. Her eyes refused to open. Her head hurt. Her eye throbbed. In fact, her whole body throbbed. Her thoughts came slowly, tangled up in knots. _'Where am I?'_ She somehow seemed...smaller. _'Am I dreaming this?'_ Was that footsteps she could hear, and heat close by? Thoughts were coming quicker to her. She could feel a pleasant breeze. She tried... yes, she could move her toes. Something was bending down... something roughly her size. Its claws were gently shaking her. She could hear a voice from somewhere. _'Maybe... I could try opening my eyes now?'_ She mused. _'But why? If I wake up, I'll... something bad will happen. I can feel it.'_ But now she had no choice in the matter. _'I wonder who is next to me?'_

The voice was calling to her, becoming more urgent. "... ... ..."

Despite herself, she was waiting impatiently. _'What's taking them so long?'_

Then, seeming to gather courage from an unknown place, the voice stuttered out "...Excuse me. I don't want to disturb you. You look peaceful, lying there. But..." The owner tailed off, but spoke again, it's voice becoming more urgent: "P-Please, wake up. Come on, wake up."

She sighed. _'Curiosity killed the Purloin... I_ know _I'm going to regret this.'_ She opened her eyes. Her powers of perception seemed to be slightly off, but she ignored it, in favour of the surroundings. The first thing she saw was moonlight beaming down, and the blades of grass swaying like exotic, erotic dancers in the wind. She then saw a Pokémon in front of her. It was an orange lizard with...strangely, no tail-flame. A Charmander. She stood up and looked around, inwardly wincing as every muscle in her body rebelled against the movement, suppressing a moan of pain. _'Just what happened to me?'_

Then, the Charmander spoke, relieved. "You're finally awake! Great!" All she could do was just stare at the Pokémon, lost for words.

' _Wh-Where is this...?'_ She looked around again. The two of them were in a forest clearing. She racked her brain, trying to figure... something... out. It was on the tip of her tongue. It then came to her head, but she quashed the thought. It wasn't possible.

"You were passed out here. I'm glad to see you awake!" The Charmander chattered happily, oblivious to her staring.

' _A male Charmander.'_ She thought everything, too shocked to put it into words.

"I'm Charmander, but you can call me Blaze. That way, we're friends. Glad to meet you!"

' _This guy is creeping me out... Is there an Escape Rope anywhere near here? Come to think of it, I have never seen this region before. The woods part looks like Pinwheel Forest in Unova, or Route 20 in Kalos. But... this isn't them. I know that.'_

Charm-no, Blaze, looked concerned, trying to puzzle out something. "So." He replied eventually. "I haven't seen you around here before."

I was then that she found her voice.. "I-I'm a human. And... And... You're a Pokémon. AND YOU _TALK_?! A talking Charmander?!"

Blaze just looked at her with concern. "Huh? Did you hit your head or something?" He then yelled "And of course I can talk! You can talk as well! All Pokémon can!"

"I'm _NOT_ A POKÉMON! I'm a human!" She screeched.

Blaze stumbled backwards, tripping over his words, "But you're _not_ a human! They don't exist!" Blaze yelled, trying to get his point across, before muttering, "Well, they used to, hundreds of years ago. There were a handful of books about them, but no-one reads those old fairy-tales anymore," He then tried to out-scream her. "B-But that's not the point! You look like a perfectly normal Treecko to me, except for that eye. Just look at yourself! Sucker-pads, a tail, and big, yellow eyes!"

Now it was her turn to become confused. And horrified.

For the first time, she looked at... herself. Her hands and feet each had three digits. Her stomach and throat were red, with a line across on her stomach resembling a pouch. Looking behind her, she saw a large, dark green tail with two separate lobes. Feeling her scaly head, she discovered two reptilian, bulbous eyes. Her left eye had three scabbed-over claw marks. The first and third stretched from her eyebrow to the top of her cheek, whereas the middle one just cleared her eye. All three were deep, raw and tender, leaving permanent scars.

She found her voice, making the roosting Pidgey abandon their nests and stream into the sky, cawing, tossing and turning in the wind like a banner of ill-omen. "It-It's true! I _have_ turned into a... AHHH! WHY AM I A TREECKO!? WHYYYYY?!"

Blaze jumped away from the panicking gecko, hoping that this was all a dream. That he wasn't here with a mad Pokémon. He pinched himself. Nope. Not a dream.

Meanwhile, she was thinking furiously, talking out loud "But...But why? I... I... I don't remember anything!"

The Charmander timidly approached the Pokémon. "Wh-What? Y-You mean to tell me... That you used to be a human... Who got turned into a Treecko... But... You don't remember _anything?!_ "Blaze exclaimed, then muttered sullenly, "I've always wanted to know what humans did..." He then burst out laughing, spluttering out in his disbelief. "HA HA HA HA! You-You really think I'm going to believe that rubbish? Humans don't turn into Pokémon! There is no such thing! Humans are just creatures out of fairy-tales!"

He never saw the attack coming. The Treecko's tail struck the Charmander full on the cheek. He recoiled from the impact, surprise plastered across his orange, scaly face, where a loud red mark was already beginning to blossom. This had barely registered in his mind when his ears heard a _whumph_ , and a light, but sturdy weight knocked him flat on his back. He looked up in surprise to see the 'mad' Treecko glaring at him ferociously through her good eye.

She spat the words at him, her voice filled with contempt and boiling with venom: "Don't. Call. Me. A. Liar."

Blaze stuttered out, his eyes filled with fear and respect for a Pokémon who was a worthy opponent, "Ok, ok." Without a word, the Treecko got off him, still glaring.

After a respectful pause, Blaze casually broke the silence. "So... What's your name?"

The question took her by surprise. Her name. "My name? I-I can't remember..." She tailed off, her brow furrowing in concentration, trying to remember something...anything. Then, one word came into her mind. _Foxglove._ "My name... That's right. My name is... Foxglove." In normal circumstances, Blaze would have said that it was a... funny name. But, this wasn't normal circumstances. He was next to a Pokémon who could be an invaluable asset, but an enemy if crossed.

Then came the scream. A frenzied Butterfree fluttered backwards and forwards, muttering to herself distractedly. Happening to glace, she noticed and shoved herself into their faces, her powder making Foxglove's eyes water, wailing like a soul in torment, "SAVE MY BABY! My little Caterpie fell down a hole into Tiny Woods! When I tried to save him, Pokémon attacked me!"

Blaze responded with concern and decided to play the hero "We'll save your baby! Foxglove, let's go!" He yelled, shoving her in-front of him, propelling her into the woods, ignoring her protests:

"Do I have a say in this?! Why should I save a pathetic caterpillar? Let me GO!"

Foxglove was shoved violently the last couple of meters, ending on her back. Whipping around with a punch ready to smash Blaze's face in, she found that the scenery had rapidly evolved from woods to a massive meadow, really quite a wide, spacious place, dotted with trees and flowers. Several paths led off to Arceus-knew-where. Temporarily forgetting her anger, she turned to Blaze, who was positively quivering in fear. "Where are we?" She enquired after a pause.

Blaze hissed, glancing around furtively, "Keep moving. I'll explain along the way. For Arceus' sake, _don't_ loose sight of me _._ This, Tiny Woods, is a Mystery Dungeon."

As the duo tentatively crept through the winding paths, which in turn led off into equally countless side-paths, the very trees, which had made the scenery seem almost pleasant, now seemed ominous and otherworldly, leering hungrily at the intruders from above.

Blaze's body language made Foxglove tense up, and her hands closed into fists, her eye raking the paths, even as she spoke, "A Mystery... Dungeon?" She whispered under her breath.

"It's a place that whenever someone enters it, it's design and layout drastically shift and change, so no-one knows the way through it. It's all too easy to get lost in them. Some say Palkia went temporally mad and decided to play god, creating these." Blaze murmured, and almost slammed into his partner, who was talking.

"So let me get this straight. Mystery Dungeons are these insane logic-defying, space-warping, Palkia-cursed death pits?"

"Yes. That seems to be just about it." Blaze giggled with a nervous spasm. He then grew sober: "But... But that's not the worst of it. The Pokémon who live here have become... feral. Insane. They're fighting machines that kill without hesitation. They have no sentiment or _any_ form of mercy. I've heard that some teams have impressed the wild Pokémon enough through the battle to get the wild Pokémon to join their team. But that's just a fairytale. They can't be reasoned with in real life. The rest of this world is almost the same, where the only sane Pokémon have to ally themselves to other sane Pokémon, no matter _what_ they are – rapists, murderers, flesh-eaters – outlaws _._ " Blaze mumbled almost incoherently, his head bowed, shuddering at the last word, as if he was ashamed of what his fellow Pokémon had become, and the Pokémon in his area were slowly becoming.

The path had now broadened into a sizeable place, with another path at the opposite end. A snarl bounced towards them, as a Spearow ripped into a Wurmple in the corner, green life-blood dribbling and trickling down it's beak as it swallowed the bug whole, it's feelers still writhing. The bird viciously shook the remains of the bug side to side, banging it against the floor, spraying blood and intestines on the walls. Foxglove bit the inside of her cheek, swallowing hard, while Blaze seemed to be having difficulty keeping his dinner down too. A rock clattered, as Blaze yelped in pain, hopping around on one foot, nursing his stubbed toe. The Spearow hissed in anger, it's feral eyes locked onto them. "I'm sorry, Foxglove! I'm sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going, and now I've led you to your death!" Blaze cried in anguish, wringing his hands like they were a dishcloth.

Foxglove snarled at him, her eye yelling _You bloody idiot! You gave away our position just because you'd stubbed your toe! If we survive this, you'll suffer! 'Damit damit damit!'_ She cursed, coughing as the dust whirled up in the fight got into her lungs and made her eyes water, as she was slowly pushed up against the wall. _'What attacks do a Treecko know?'_ Acting on blind instinct, shecharged at the Spearow, then jumped and slammed her body into it multiple times, muttering madly, cursing as the beak created fresh cuts to add to old scars. Then, her back scraped the wall of the dungeon.

"S _hit."_ She hissed, moving her head so she could just about see Blaze staring at the scene uselessly, through the whirlwind of claws, beaks and feathers. Foxglove tried to keep the Spearow from ripping her throat out as she yelled at the lizard: "OI!-I-could-do-with-some-help-over-here!"

Blaze stuttered out, tailing off, "I-I'm not strong enough-"

"Don't give me that rubbish! Use a fire-type move!"

"I-I" Blaze mumbled, while she screeched "Just do it!" Ten years of built up pressure exploded out of Blaze in one fell swoop, as he revealed his most shameful secret, talking quickly, desperately trying to get his point across while his companion was fighting for their life. "I don't have any fire power! As a rule, a fire types' body is permanently warm because of the heat they generate. A Charmanders' emotions are controlled by their tail-flame. However, my body has always been stone cold. No tail-flame, no fire power."

"But-" Foxglove abruptly cut off this thrilling and interesting conversation and yelped, as the Spearow aimed a particularly vicious swipe with its beak at her legs, which would have hamstrung her if she hadn't jumped backwards, but it did succeed in tripping her up, with a blow that sent her sprawling to the dusty ground.

Blaze looked at his claws thoughtfully. _'I'm weak. Pathetically weak. Everyone says so. But I must have other moves...'_ He shakily raised his claws into the air, both flashing white. Blaze scratched the Spearow twice with both claws, leaving behind a trail of white energy. _'Scratch. Pathetic.'_ Foxglove snorted in disgust, her voice coming out with a croak, rasping gravelly, slowly getting back on her feet, her hand steadying her. Trying to remove the lights that held her temporally blind. Managing to finally get back on her feet, Foxglove leapt into the air and smacked her tail into the Spearow's back with a _crack_ that echoed off the walls with terrifying eagerness, the sound fading limpidly into silence.

The Spearow lay there limply, occasionally lifted it's head, cawing in a croaky sort of way. Other than that, it did not move. It was Blaze who approached the bird first. He gently ran his fingers over the Pokémon's body, lifting wings, feeling the belly, poking its throat. Finally, his fingers tentatively stroked the Spearow's back. After a while, he straightened up, faced Foxglove, and gave his diagnosis: "It's back is broken. Every minute it lives will be torture. It will never fly again. I doubt it could walk. You need to finish it off. With you, it'll die quickly. If you leave it here, weak and helpless..." Blaze tailed off, jerking his head at the blood – all that was left of the Wurmple, eaten by the Spearow before them. The Cycle of Life.

A million thoughts were flying through her head. _'Is this morally acceptable? Killing a Pokémon? When it isn't fighting back?'_

Blaze seemed to read her mind, his voice low, gentle, and persuasive. "If this poor thing was sane, it would tell you to get it over with." The Spearow cawed, weaker, seemingly on command.

"Do it."

Foxglove took a deep breath... and nodded.

She grabbed the Spearow by the scruff of it's neck, telling herself that it was out of pain. She killed it in the quickest way possible. In one swift motion, she took it's jaw in her hands, and quickly twisted the neck sideways and upwards. It was that quick: the death of the unknown Spearow. Foxglove bent down and placed her middle and index finger against its neck. Satisfied with no pulse, she and her partner turned away from the body and headed rapidly for the tunnel exit, with their faces stern and yet, at the same time, completely expressionless. The duo neither looked back or checked their step. They walked from the room without a word.

When their clicking footsteps echoed away, a few dried-up leaves drifted almost casually across the bloodstained scene. A harsh, slow croaking sound descended as a murder of Mandibuzz careered down. One hopped over, ripped open the belly, and tugged thoughtfully at the kidneys, chewing in a meditative sort of way.

The team rounded the bend in the corner, "Er... Blaze?" Foxglove spoke, casually swatting a Wurmple aside. It crumpled against the wall like weak tin, it's red shell shattered in about a million different ways. The yellow... _fluid..._ leaked from the cracks in it's fragmented shell, dribbling slowly down it's cream underside, staining the wall. She could see the remains of dull yellow eyes, staring at her accusingly.

"Yes?"

"Well, why does everyone call you Charmander except me?"

Blaze gave a laugh, nervously rubbing the back of his head, while Scratching a Pidgey of its feathers. "It's... complicated. See, if a Pokémon is a stranger, you call them by their species name, but if you know them... if that Pokémon is your friend, or partner, they go by a name they pick for themselves."

"So... you call a Pokémon by their species name if you don't know them, but if you are their friend, you call them by their species name." Foxglove muttered, trying to memorize it. _'There is'_ Foxglove thought, as she Pounded a Sunkern into submission, _'One major disadvantage of having no left eye. I can't see anything coming at me from my left.'_ She then reflected on something. _'My ears make up for my eye. Especially my left ear.'_ As the Pokémon shoved their unconscious opponents aside, clearing the pathway, they walked into a room. With stone stairs.

Foxglove's jaw hit the floor and stayed there. "Blaze." She spoke, after a long pause, "Why are there stairs here?"

Blaze just mumbled: "One level of a Mystery Dungeon is called a floor. Staircases are randomly generated in the dungeon in any room – what these spaces are called, don't ask me why – they are there so Pokémon can go to the next floor. Depending on the dungeon, they can go up or down. Using the stairs is the only way to get to the next floor. For some reason, wild Pokémon can't go up them. Here's another thing about Mystery Dungeons. They're not just a abnormality of space, if you walk around enough, you can heal yourself. At the cost of increasing your hunger." Her head in a whirl, Foxglove numbly climbed the staircase.

After what seemed like forever wandering through a maze of passageways, a glint caught Foxglove's eyes. She then realised what it was. _"Money!"_ She yelled, diving headfirst at the gold, her hand swooping down and plucking it off the floor. Blaze laughed. "You should have become a Meowth, not a Treecko. Poké is money in this world." Blaze chatted, proud of something in this world, for once: "It's our currency. You find it lying around Mystery Dungeons, or sometimes wild Pokémon pick them up, and drop them when they faint. You _do_ know how money works, right?" Blaze finished the last sentence with a desperate look in his eye.

Foxglove rolled her eye. _"Yes,_ I _do_ know how to use money. I haven't forgotten _everything,_ you know." She replied somewhat sharply, over-emphasising certain words.

"Just asking." Blaze muttered sullenly. They continued in silence through the path. Foxglove bumped into Blaze's back, startled that he had stopped. His right hand silently pointed to what he was staring at, his eyes locked upon the dusty ground, spewing dead leaves. A single Oran Berry lay in the dirt. Without a word, the Wood Gecko Pokémon picked it up, and, keeping a tight hold on, they moved on.

"Another thing I forgot to mention, you can find berries as well as money in Mystery Dungeons. Pokémon can hold items. Bands, Ribbons, Scarves, ect." A growl rumbled from a confined space.

"That was my belly. I'll just explain as we walk." Blaze laughed, tossing Foxglove the Oran Berry from earlier. "Your belly decreases as you make your way through Dungeons." Blaze explained, "If you happen to be moving through a special terrain, for instance, a Charmander goes through magma, you get more hungry quicker. Certain items can up your hunger, such as Heal Ribbons, which also restore HP. If your belly is empty, every step you take reduces your HP. So _be careful_. You can eat Berries, Gummies, Apples, Chestnuts (though you need to peel them first), Bananas (though I have never came across those) and Grimy Food, which you get by falling into a Grimy Trap holding food. It's not advisable to eat _them_."

Another few rooms, Foxglove realised that she loved her food. She had to stop to eat _constantly_. After several more battles, stairs, and, yes, _food,_ Foxglove was wondering if they would ever find the Caterpie.

Finally, after climbing the fifth staircase, they came upon a green blob with big eyes snivelling in a corner. Caterpie had tears running down it's cheeks "Whaaaaa... Mummy..." he sobbed, "Where are you... ?" He turned at the sound of footsteps, expecting to see the Pokémon who had r-r- _done something_ to him.

Instead, he saw a Treecko with one eye, and a Charmander with no tail-flame. Foxglove glanced at her partner, drinking in his appearance, before self-examining her own. Blaze's claws were flecked in blood, and the fact that he had no tail-flame, but was walking around made him seem otherworldly. Not that her own appearance was any better. Her eye had three uneven, white scars stretched tight over the closed lid, as well as a few cuts from fights on the way there. She looked back at the clearly terrified Caterpie.

"Blaze, Caterpie is scared of us. He's only ten, by the looks of it. You talk to him."

Taking a deep breath, and nodding Blaze broke into the cheery voice every adult has used when talking to a frightened child: "We came to rescue you. Your Mum's waiting. Let's get you out of here."

Caterpie cocked his head to one side, puzzled, hoping... "Huh?" His mood quickly changed at the chance of leaving. "Ok!"

Outside Tiny Woods, Butterfree squealed in delight, hugging Caterpie tight to her chest, crushing him in a loving embrace, sobbing tears of joy. "My baby! My little Caterpie!"

Snug against his mother's wings, Caterpie was shedding tears freely, crying a river, "Mummy!" After a pause, the family turned to the scuffed-up rescuers.

Butterfree blurted out, wiping her eyes, "My baby is safe!"

She then sobered up, expecting them to be typical Pokémon: I'll-beat-you-up-unless-you-give-me-money. "I'm sorry, but I don't know how to thank you properly..."

Foxglove opened her mouth to say 'Give me money, food and items and I won't kill you!', but Blaze, seeing what was going through her head, stamped on her foot and butted in.

"Oh, that's ok! It's been dangerous lately with all these sudden quakes and fissures like that one. I was great to find your little boy unharmed. _Right,_ Foxglove?" Blaze broke off, his eyes quickly glaring at the gecko, emphasising the word.

Butterfree, apparently not noticing anything amiss, continued to jabber politely, "Please, may I have you names at least?" Blaze continued in his cheerful voice, though slightly strained: "I'm Blaze." He turned to Foxglove, "And this is Foxglove."

Caterpie, who had been silent throughout the whole exchange, murmured "... Cool...", gazing at Foxglove with adoring eyes, creating discomfort for both.

Foxglove squirmed uncomfortably, warily eyeing the adoring Caterpie, thinking: _'He's, uh... Staring at me adoringly... Those sparkly eyes... It's a little embarrassing...'_ Then, her discomfort cleared. _'It's like I'm a heroine. Helping Pokémon in trouble might be a good experience.'_ She concluded, her face giving no hint of her thoughts.

Caterpie chirped happily: "Thank you! Blaze and Foxglove!" _'Blaze and Foxglove? Why can't it be Foxglove and Blaze? I'm the protagonist here!'_ Foxglove grumbled.

"I know this isn't really enough, and this comes no-where near to repaying the two of you, but this is a token of our thanks. Please accept it."

Butterfree mumbled, stumbling over her apologies, pressing an Oran Berry, _'Ok, this will get my HP up slightly quicker than just walking around,'_ Pecha Berry, _'It will heal me from poisoning,'_ Rawst Berry _'This will cure me from Burning, but nothing else.'_ Butterfree then stepped back. _'This is it? A bunch of berries?'_ Foxglove ground her teeth furiously, livid at the measly gift. _'Just wait until I see that Butterfree again!'_ She vowed, her hands curling into fists.

Butterfree might or might not have seen the reaction, but she decided to quickly cut an end to the conversation, speaking shortly, in a hurried manner: "Thank you so much! Good-bye!" Butterfree then sped off, dragging her baby behind her.

Blaze turned to Foxglove, and looked her in the eye. They were both disappointed with the 'gift', but neither was going to admit it.

Blaze was beaming from ear to ear, "Thank you for helping! You're very tough. I sure was impressed."

She couldn't resist a snarky comment: _'Get your grammar right.'_

Blaze seemed to be brooding on something, "So... What are you going to do? Do you have any plans?" Blaze curiously questioned her.

It didn't take much meditating on the gecko's part. She was a human-turned-Pokémon with no memory, an outcast if anyone knew, with only one eye. She had no plans. She didn't know where to go. She was lost. '...'

Blaze seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, thinking out a plan. "... Listen, Foxglove. If you don't have a place to stay, you can come with me."

Foxglove's eye flew open in shock. It was unheard of for a Pokémon to offer a strange Pokémon – the same was true for humans – to stay with them. She couldn't get the words out, but Blaze seemed to get what she was trying to say. He started to walk away from the clearing, east, with Foxglove following behind. They walked through a forest, until it cleared out to a much used path, which sharply turned north. Following the path, it broadened out into a proper path, with trees lining the border.

The path went for a couple of inches more, until it became a t-junction. To the left, to the west, the path went far out, a wooden sign proclaiming: 'Friend Area'. To the right, the east, the path led all the way to a bridge with water flowing under it, the sounds of hustle and bustle coming further away. South was where the dungeons were.

To the north, there was a house. To the critical gaze, it was a propped-up cottage. The cottage was made of pale white tree planks, probably silver beech, with the top of a tree poking it's head through a hole in the roof. Tendrils of shy ivy peered out of the cracks in the smooth boards.

There was a simple door, basically a hole knocked out of the front. A path was dotted with paving stones, disappearing into the stubby grass. South-west of the house was a plain oaken mailbox. North-west heralded a dirty-cream flag, with two green patches, one on either side, waving in the breeze on top of a wooden pole.

The whole plot was bordered by bushes overflowing with greenery either side. Inside the house, opposite the entrance, to the very back, was a straw bed. The trunk of a tree, complete with branches and leaves, was in the centre of the room. Ivy bloomed along the walls, and dotted around the actual room itself. A tree stump served as a stool to the west of the building, opposite another, though smaller, bed.

"Nice house you've got there." Foxglove commented, while inwardly she said _'Not bad for a Pokémon',_ as Blaze stopped outside the hut, smiling at her.

"Well. We're here. What d'you think?" She looked over the house one more time, taking it in.

' _Well...'_ She thought hesitantly, _'It's not White Forest, but_ anything _is better than Black City.'_ She looked at the building once more. _'Heck, I didn't even know Pokémon could build their own houses. I always thought that they slept rough on the ground.'_ She felt a grin spreading over her face, as alien thoughts came unbidden to her head. _'Wow! I can't explain it, but I'm really happy! I'm a human being, but I like this place. I feel weirdly happy!'_ The alien thoughts clashed with her real thoughts: _'Wait,_ what _? I'm not happy about this dump-' 'It might be an instinct thing for Pokémon... Maybe this is what it feels like to wag your tail... It doesn't matter! I'm happy! Maybe I feel that way because I'm a Treecko!'_ She braced herself for more, but it seemed to be over... For now. She had the feeling that someone had been manipulating her. She didn't like that.

Blaze just turned to her, beaming: "Oh, Foxglove. You're impressed, aren't you?"

' _Not really, someone just tried to manipulate me into happiness.'_ She shot at him.

"I thought so. I thought this might be a good place for you to live, Foxglove."

' _Thank you, but Blaze, you met me a couple of hours ago, you've had this house your_ whole life _. It's been_ made _for a grass type. Did you_ mean _to have a grass type as your partner-'_ Blaze suddenly grinned from ear to ear. "I was sure you would like it." Blaze then walked up to the Mailbox. "This is your Mailbox. They deliver mail from Pokémon here."

"Pokémon send other Pokémon mail?" She exclaimed, Blaze laughing at her expression.

"You know, just like the fissure Caterpie fell into... For some reason, there have been many natural disasters lately."

' _Natural disasters? Just what did I get myself into?'_ Foxglove wondered miserably.

"Because of these disasters, many Pokémon have been suffering recently. I want to help Pokémon in these tough times. But... Pokémon teams as a rule don't accept Pokémon who have disabilities. and since I have no fire power, and you have one eye, no team will accept either of us, and to set up a team, you need at least two members. And I want to change things so that all the Pokémon can live in peace."

"That's a nice goal, Blaze." She politely spoke, though why should she help Pokémon who were too lazy to save their own butts?

Blaze stumbled over his speech, seeming uncertain, "So... uh. I... I liked the way you handled yourself when you rescued Caterpie. Especially since you're handicapped."

' _Thanks for the compliment.'_ She grumbled, though at the same time, secretly pleased.

Blaze took the dive. "Foxglove. Please could you join me on my rescue team?"

"No. Why should I save over-powered Pokémon who are too lazy to get out of low-levelled dungeons themselves?" Foxglove snapped shortly.

Blaze wheedled, "There are rewards. You get food and Poke. Lots of them. As well as statues and... _rare items_ time to time."

The offer of big rewards were what made her change her mind. "Ok. I'll do it."

The change in Blaze was unbelievable. He jumped into the air, spinning around, yelling "Perfect! That's it then! We're partners in our rescue team from now on, Foxglove! Glad to have you on board."

She nodded. "So, what's our team's name?" She asked, trying to stimulate the conversation. Blaze's face fell a mile. "A team name... Well..." He giggled, "I haven't thought of one." _'_

 _A name? That's the easy part.'_ Foxglove scoffed.

Then, an idea struck him like lightning on a clear summers day. "Hey! Foxglove! Since you're the leader, you pick our name."

She was stunned. _'A team name?_ Me? _'_ Foxglove somehow stuttered out, trying various combinations: _'Fire? Leaf? Leaf Fire? Fire Leaf? No. Red? Green? Fire Red? Leaf Green? Fire Green? Leaf Red? No. Leaf Flare? No. Wildfire? N-... Hmmm... Wildfire... A wildfire is a fire started in the Australian bush that is difficult to control. Cool.'_ "A good name for our team would be... Team Wildfire. A wildfire is dangerous, not to be messed about with. It is started in the bush, by a fire. Since I'm a grass type and you're a fire type..." She trailed off, with Blaze nodding in delight.

"Wildfire! I like it! It's a good name! It's perfect for us! Rescue Team Wildfire! Let's do good! Starting tomorrow!" Even the cynical Treecko, Foxglove, was caught up in Blaze's excitement, so she spun around so she was facing south and punched the air, along with Blaze behind her.

* * *

Many miles away, two red eyes snapped open. The owner stood up, staring at the white orb that was the moon, and the many twinkling stars that gathered around it, like a king in his court. A sudden cold breeze hissed through white fur, making it swish like a river divided into many channels. A Noctowl hooted, almost like a signal.

"So." The Pokémon whispered, their voice quiet enough to be drowned out by the wind, looking away from the moon, walking to the edge of the cliff, claws skittering and clicking on the polished rock, staring out into the rustling trees, swaying like drunken men in the wind, and beyond that, almost as if it could see what was going on _beyond_ the naked eye.

"You came. I didn't think you would. I hoped... But the gods like to mess and play their little games with us." The Pokémon paced to the cave, a network of interlinking caves, all as one massive network of tunnels, briskly trotted back outside to their vigil on the jutting shelf.

It seemed to be in an agony of ferocious conflict with its own self, before, at length, coming to a decision. It uttered four words that would have chilled the heart of anyone who cared to listen, laying a heavy emphasis on the third word by a slow, deliberate, scarring scrape on the rock. " _I will find you."_

 **Sorry if this chapter is a bit long-winded, but I needed to get all the explanations out of the way in order to advance the plot. I will be on holiday, so I won't be updating anytime soon, sorry.**

 **I decided for the first wild encounter to end with the death of the opponent, the wild Pokémon killing a fellow Pokémon, the hint that Caterpie had been raped, and a mysterious assassin going to hunt down** _ **someone**_ **, just to give the story a darker theme.**

 **Happy holidays, everyone!**

 **Archeops567 out!**


	3. Chapter 3: Enemies

**Thanks for the reviews, everyone. Also, I decided to skip the Magnemite mission, but I will start this chapter off with the dreams, and anything else I deem as important to the plot, then I'll commence the time skipping. This is because I will be cramming five days into one chapter. A line break:**

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 **Can be a time skip** _ **or**_ **a line break.**

 _This means this is all a dream._

This is telepathy when the writing is in italics

 _This is telepathy when the writing style is normal_

*This means a message in-game* an example would be: *Blaze grew to Lv 35!*

 **SunnySummer77, thanks for your review. I will try to follow it. Thanks for the help. I understand what you meant about new characters, and I'll try to keep your review in mind when I'm writing. I've altered this chapter based on your review, so I hope this is easier to read.**

 **I know what you mean. I've come across some terrific Fanfictions, only for them to be left to gather dust and abandoned.**

 **I am just going to warn readers, that I will have to write fight scenes, and I am** _ **terrible**_ **at writing them. First, there is the description of the attacks, because this is the Pokémon world. I can't just write, "Blaze used Metal Claw!" Oh, no. I have to** _ **describe**_ **the attack in** _ **detail**_ **. Then, because I don't want the battles to be boring (because the protagonist is a Pokémon), I have to write it like I'm experience the battles first-hand, not just sitting behind the scenes dishing out orders while the Pokémon rip each other to shreds**

 **Also, I** _ **will**_ **finish this story. I have the plot and characters planned out in my head.**

 **Chapter 3: Enemies**

The next morning, Foxglove yawned, woke up, looked at herself, looked around, and sighed. "...I'm still the same." She muttered sullenly, "The way I look... I'm still a one-eyed Treecko." Her mind then started off the great question: why? "But why would I be transformed into a Pokémon? ..." She puzzled, her brow furrowed in concentration. She then burst out in a sudden rush, "Gah! I don't understand any of this!" She exclaimed. A sudden wave of sleepiness crashed down on her. She wasn't feeling well... She needed more sleep... "Well screw that! I'm up, and I'm staying awake!" She snapped to herself, marching out of the house, where she could see the inert, sleeping form of Blaze. "The lazy arsehole. I'll kick him up." She muttered grumpily.

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 _She stood in world of green pulsing lights. She turned around, but there was nothing but the greenness, stretching on and on to Arceus-knew-where. "... ... ..." She paused, pondering. "Where... Where am I?" She finally let out, "Where is this?" Foxglove was decided on one thing. She was dreaming. She was in a dreamscape. She then heard it. Voices. Screams and yells. Blood, pain and violence. Death. So much death. So many corpses. They were piled in a heap, a hill of sad bodies. Bodies of Pokémon, who had been killed in various manners. One had been butchered and eaten alive by acidic venom. Another had a smashed-in skull, leaking blood and bone. A third had his mouth open in a permanent, frozen scream that made no sound._

 _They were demanding their way into her head, making her brain hurt. She clutched her head. Even when all this was giving her a migraine, she knew that these were her memories. Stained with death and blood. Someone was calling her name. She wasn't alone. There was someone here with her._ _Despite it all, Foxglove protested when she felt her body waking up._

She woke with her heart thrashing in her chest. Trying to calm herself, she firmly stated, emotionlessly, that "I can't tell Blaze about this. Not yet. Not now. I'll tell him if only _necessary_."She murmured, emphasising the last word by punching the hard-packed ground.

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 _She could hear that voice again. If she listened, she could almost make it out, like an apple on a branch a couple of millimetres out of reach. Then, the earth shook. Indeed, with every second it went on, the quake became more and more violent. It was almost as if a battle was going on inside her dream._

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The Skarmory stood; its wings outspread, giving off a metallic rattling sound as it clashed them together. With a speed that seemed almost impossible to believe, it knocked her off her feet, overwhelming her in an onslaught of metal beaks, claws and wings. Making sure she was a bloodied, bruised heap, he zipped around and rammed into Blaze. The Pokémon picked Blaze up by his feet, and repeatedly smashed his head against the rocks, all the time screeching in victory.

"I will eat you, and then I'll eat your friend. I'll rip the meat from your bones as you scream and beg. Nice and slow, yesss!" Skarmory hissed sadistically.

Without thinking, Foxglove's body became outlined in a dark purple, as she charged at the Skarmory, and spun like a Catherine wheel, slamming her body into the metallic bird horizontally. Her body bounced off him with a metallic, ringing _clang_ , shoving herself and Blaze under an overhanging jut of the cliff.

The Pokémon cawed overhead, challenging them: "Come out and FIGHT! Come out and DIE!" He screamed. He then changed tack, getting no response from the barren terrain. "I promise it'll be quick..." He cooed, which was actually a harsh caw, trying to hide his sadistic, mad mind.

"What a liar." Foxglove hissed, seriously worried. _'I have a type disadvantage, and Blaze can't use fire-type moves. He didn't seem to feel the Pursuit at all. Does this thing have a body of steel? Well, yes, it's a metal bird, but it can fly_ unhindered _. In fact, better than most flying types.'_

She then outlined her plan to Blaze. It relied on several things: her speed, them being able to cling on after lots of super-effective hits (if the worst came to the worst, they had a tight hold on their Reviver Seeds), her observance at judging when Skarmory would attack, and Blaze's firepower training. And they had made practically no headway with the last one. Most importantly, Skarmory _had_ to use Arial Ace.

Blaze scrambled over the treacherous edge, careful to remain undetected. Now, he was at the centre of the cliff. Summoning his courage, he breathed in. Blaze felt a warm heat rising up to his throat, as he released pin-prick bolts of fire from his mouth, hitting the Skarmory. Ember might have (and still is) been the weakest fire type attack of all time, but weak or not, it was super effective, so it successfully succeeded in grabbing the enemy Pokémon's attention. This was the main point.

With a screech, Skarmory shot down, raising its wings, screaming "DIE!" thinking how to make their deaths the most prolonged and painful manner possible.

Foxglove noted, _'When it raises its wings, it uses a special attack, when it dives and flaps its wings once,_ that's _when it will use Aerial Ace.'_ Once it did that, it would move so fast it became a blur. This would be all about timing.

The Skarmory struck, not because of the Ember attack, but because his pride had been stung. It came with no time to prepare. Or so he thought. Skarmory spread its wings out. His wings glowed a light blue, and he swiped them into an 'X' formation, creating a light blue 'X' in front of him, and fired the 'X' shaped light blue energy at the fire lizard, who dodged, the energy catching his partner, who had been hiding behind him, amidships, sending her teetering to the very edge of the cliff.

She hoped he would take the bait. He did. She gave an almost invisible smirk, _'Hook, line and sinker.'_ The enemy dived down at Foxglove, and flapped its wings once. She knew what was going to happen next. Once it did that, it would move so fast it would become a blur, speed up massively and shove her off the cliff. She tensed, her hands curling into fists, bracing, as the Pokémon came closer.

' _Not yet.'_ And closer. _'Not yet.'_ Closer. "Now!" She screamed out loud, shoved off the cliff, feeling a bad bruise forming on her chest, her eyes on fire where the Skarmory had smashed them. Her hand reached out and grabbed the Skarmory's chest, and from there, Foxglove slung herself on top of the bird.

"Getoffme, getoffme, GETOFFME!" Screaming in anger, Skarmory barrel rolled, looped the loop, and did anything to throw the Treecko off. In a futile gesture, the Armour Bird charged straight towards the cliff, it hoped to dodge at the last possible second, and crush its rider on the cliff face. Now came the risky part.

Blaze was shaking in terror. "Why did I agree to this?" He shuddered, petrified. "I don't know any fire type moves, I have no fire power, and I'm going to die!" Strangely, the fact that he might die was new to him. All of his darkest thoughts were crowding around him. Then, for no reason, his fear and panic disappeared. With a deep, shuddering breath, he breathed in... And expelled bolts of fire. "Ember!"

Foxglove closed her eyes as the heat washed over her. Wherever it hit, red welts sprung up. Her skin peeled in the heat, like bad sunburn.

Then, she fell.

Foxglove.

 _A green flying Pokémon circled a stone carved with strange runes, crying out._

 _Luna's teeth fastened around the Pokémon's throat, shaking it viciously, like a terrier shaking a rat, from side to side. Miniature beads of blood formed a gory necklace._

 _A red and black blue-eyed bird cried out in pain and rage._

 _Who are you?_

Who I am doesn't matter.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

 _What do you mean?_

Listen. In this world, you shall experience two dark times. Death shall hover over you, some he will take, and some he will spare. It followed you from your past life, into this life. Because of your curse. Your cursed disease.

 _My... Curse?_

Yes.

Whatever happens, always remember:

Never give up. Never forget. Grind like hell.

Now, wake up.

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

Blaze peered over the edge of the cliff. He saw Skarmory, flying off into the distance. Foxglove was still falling.

Without a word, two Magneton floated down, the sun glittering off their skin, muttering: "Bzzt. Species: Treecko. Status: Unconscious. Bzzt. Species: Diglett: Status: Currently Transporting. Calculating Decision... Bzzt. Take Treecko And Diglett. Bzzt."

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Outside the team base, the same Magneton floated in midair. If it was possible for an overgrown, floating screw with an eye to be confused, the Magneton would be just that. It hummed, buzzing in its strange, robotic voice, "Bzzt. He. Bzzt. Has Them? Feet? Bzzt."

 _That night, she was back. Again. In that strange, green world. 'I'm sure there was someone else with me last time...' Foxglove tailed off. Then, she heard the voice again. A blurred, indistinct, faded shape of a Pokémon came into view. It was speaking. But she couldn't make out the words. Only now... It seemed to be cut off, as if there was interference for a second. Like static. It flashed across so quickly that she couldn't be sure of its existence. She dismissed it. Ignored it. That was her first mistake. She protested violently against waking up, yelling that she wanted to see more, but it did no good._

Foxglove woke up, distorted. Her head hurt, her heart bashed against her ribs. She walked, sleepwalking, out of the hut to be greeted by Blaze. "Morning Foxglove!" He cheerfully cried, the usual wake-up call, bursting out laughing at the state she was in, half-asleep, "Hahaha! What's the matter? You haven't woken up yet?" He then realised that his friend seemed to be a little... off. With a look of concern, Foxglove told him about her dreams. He then enquired innocently, perhaps _too_ innocently, "Oh? You've been having strange dreams? What was strange about them?"

She snapped, "They seem too lifelike to be mere dreams. I don't think they _are_ dreams."

"Then what are they?"

"I don't know!" Foxglove exclaimed.

Blaze then puzzled over the information Foxglove had presented him, ignoring her anger. "Hmmm... Ok. Foxglove, you said you're actually a human, right?" She glared at him, " _Yes_." "So maybe... Maybe those dreams... Those dreams might have a connection with how you became a Pokémon, Foxglove."

It was all she could do to not roll her eye, scoffing: _'Idiot.'_

With a yawn, Foxglove woke up the next morning, for once, with no strange dreams. Her mind flashed over the events from yesterday. A few rescue missions and that was it. Stifling a yawn, she walked outside.

"Morning Foxglove!"

"Hi Blaze." She replied to his cheeriness like a Psyduck with a particularly painful headache. As usual, Foxglove checked the mailbox, adamant that it would be empty again. Like every other day for the last week. With a resigned sigh, she trudged over to the front of the mailbox. Her eyes flew open, as she stared at the mail. Five envelopes, all written to Team Wildfire. Blaze chortled in glee.

A voice cut their joy short. This voice would make the duo mature before their time. This voice would make Foxglove hate the owner with a passion unrivalled by any other, doing her level best to make him suffer. "Is this the place? Where that team named Wildfire is based?"

A hissing voice rose in answer "There'sss nothing here."

A third voice broke in, "Depressing, isn't it." It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

The first one gave a short, amused laugh, "Keh! Who'd run a rescue team from a dump like this? Unbelievable!"

Foxglove snapped, _'I know it isn't the palace of Versailles, but it's better than a heap of shit!'_ A malicious cackle came from behind them. A Gengar waddled over to the path, leading an Ekans and a Medicham. _'That guy is fat, even for a Gengar.'_ Foxglove noted, puzzled by a faint sense of familiarity.

Blaze asked, puzzled, "Who are you?" Gengar seemed to find this amusing.

Medicham cooed, "I'll have you know, we're a rescue team too." "But all we ever get up to is no good~."

Ekans simultaneously sang, joining in the rehearsed motto. Foxglove had always been lured by the appeal of being on the villainous side, beating up idealised, immature, overpowered idiots with electric rats. But the mottos were stupid. "-Want to know how it works~?" " _Arceus_ , no." Foxglove moaned. "Don't monologue. You'll go all cliché on us. I _hate_ monologue! You'll have the cover of a rescue team, and aim for all of this world-domination nonsense!"

Ignoring her comment, Ekans sang "If we have the cover of a rescue team, we can get away with so much more~!"

Medicham filled in the space "We have our eyes on world domination~!"

Foxglove couldn't prevent herself from rolling her eye at Blaze's stupidity, shocked: "Wha... World domination?!"

Gengar chuckled, "Kekeh! You heard me right. That's why we're raking in cash and adding it to our gang! The world will be ours! Rescue team evil!" _'It'll be something like Team Skull.'_ "Team Meanies!" Gengar cried with the air of a conjurer who has unveiled a great trick.

Foxglove burst out laughing, almost unable to stand up straight. "Team... Meanies... that is the most... uninspired, unoriginal,... most generic name of an evil team in entire the history of Pokémon!" Within five minutes, Foxglove was nursing a black eye, glaring at Gengar.

Medicham gave a soft cry, interrupting the crackling tension, smirking "Oh! Over there! A mailbox!" In a body, the three Pokémon advanced onto, and surrounded, the mailbox.

Gengar's smile turned into a ecstatic grin, pushing Blaze aside, whooping. "Kekeh, yeah! Check it out!" Gengar poured over the mail, rummaging through it in glee.

Blaze's fuse, dangerously short, finally snapped, hissing at them. "Wait a second! What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" The Pokémon ignored him.

Ekans hissed happily "Yesss! Rescue job offersss!"

Medicham purred "Oo-la-la! Isn't that tasty?"

Gengar chuckled. "Yes... We'll take 'em all."

Blaze, sick of being ignored, bellowed, "STOP!" It may have been more impressive if he had left it at that, but, childishly, he had to add "They were meant for us!"

Gengar scoffed, "What a baby. You believe in _justice, honesty_ and _truth_? In _this_ fallen world? You're even more stupid then I realised."

Gengar roughly shoved Blaze to the ground, nodding to his minions. Blaze leapt to his feet, about to fight, when he felt a light prickling at his throat. Medicham had her arms around his neck, her claws out, lightly touching his neck. Foxglove was choking, wrapped in Ekans' coils, in a similar predicament.

With a sigh, Gengar removed his claws, and walked over to the mailbox, muttering "I could have just done all this without violence, but no, you just _had_ to fight..." He held the mail in his chubby fist. Ekans and Medicham released their grips, sauntering off in a cocky manner.

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The next day, Foxglove bumped into Blaze. "Good morning, Foxglove!" "'Morning Blaze." A child's voice then cried out in panic. "Foxglove! Blaze!" Blaze pondered who had cried out, before seeing Caterpie crawling as fast as possible towards them. Caterpie turned towards Foxglove, his eyes red and puffy. Blaze, seeming oblivious to his state, cheerily spoke. "Oh, Caterpie? How have you been?" She could have punched her partner for being an idiot.

Caterpie snivelled, howling in terror, "Please! Help my friend!"

Blaze spoke, concerned, "What's the matter?"

' _His friend, who is probably of the Caterpie line, a Caterpie, Metapod, or a Butterfree, (It's probably a Metapod, since_ he _is a Caterpie, and his mum is a Butterfree) is trapped, and I've got to save him. Yay.'_ Foxglove moaned sarcastically and unenthusiastically.

"I was playing with my friend Metapod..."

' _I told you so. Wait. How can you play with a cocoon? Do you use it to whack a ball? As one of the ninepins? A skittle in bowling?'_ Foxglove puzzled.

"But Metapod got lost in the woods... He's still lost out there..." At this, Caterpie dissolved into a sobbing wreak.

' _How can something that can only roll get lost?'_

Then, a fatherly voice floated up to the gang. "Oh, I see, I see. That does sound bad. Kekeke!" Team Meanies appeared, chuckling, smiling at some secret joke.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" Blaze snapped at the team in general, but his comment was directed at Gengar.

Yet again, Gengar ignored Team Wildfire, talking to Caterpie, "Have no fear! We're here to save your chum Metapod."

"Hold it!" Blaze hissed, frothing at the mouth, "Caterpie came to _us_ for help!"

Gengar gave a bark of laughter. "Keh! Do you really think you can do this rescue with your amateur-level skills?" His voice grew amused "A one-eyed freak and a _disgrace_ of a fire type? With no firepower?"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" Blaze bellowed, with a sound that sounded suspiciously like a Tyranitar with a particularly painful toothache, who desired to Hyper Beam everything. For once, Foxglove agreed with him.

Gengar seemed unconcerned with Blaze's rage. "It doesn't matter who does the rescuing, see? The guy who does the rescuing gets to be the hero."

' _Which I don't care about.'_

"- and they also get the dosh."

' _This is more important than any reputation for heroism. Heroics get you killed._ '

Evidently, Gengar had got tired of tormenting his rivals, because he then turned to Caterpie with what he thought was a smile, but it was actually a cruel smirk. "Listen, Caterpie. How about we do this?"

"Oh boy. Here it goes..." Foxglove groaned.

"- How about you give the reward to the team that brings your chum first?" Foxglove rolled her eye.

Gengar was plotting something. That she was sure of. "But I..." Caterpie started hesitantly, before taking the plunge, "I don't have any money."

' _Then why should I help you? You have crap items, no money... You're useless!'_ Her thoughts then took another path. _'But... I bet we'll have to fight Team Meanies. That will mean exp. And exp means levelling up. And levelling up means more power._ '

"Oh don't you worry about that, my little friend!" She shuddered at the word 'friend'. "-I'm sure we can... _Persuade_ your mum to reward us with interest afterwards, kekeh!" Somehow, she thought that when they said persuasion, they had actually meant either raping or beating up Butterfree to agree. Or both.

Gengar seemed to be about to end the conversation, when he seemed to be struck with an afterthought. He tossed it carelessly into the air, an irresistible lure. And they caught it. "Oh yeah! You can even join our team! That's an offer you can't refuse! When you join us, Caterpie, you'll be a big wheel in Team Meanies, kekeh! That's the deal, Blaze. The first to rescue wins!"

' _Now that,'_ She thought, _'that is the work of a master manipulator.'_ Foxglove thought quickly. _'They've turned this into a race. If Gengar gets to Metapod first, he'll get the reward, a new (useless) recruit, and all the credit. If we win, we get more exp, possibly a level, the reward, and the credit.'_

Gengar barked out the orders, "Come on, move it! Let's get this done already!" Team Meanies departed.

Caterpie was silent. He turned to Team Wildfire, his eyes wordlessly pleading.

Blaze spoke up. "We'll save Metapod. Won't we?"

She sighed. "I'll do it, but only for the exp I'll get." Her reluctance went unnoticed.

 **Sinister Woods.**

Foxglove and Blaze halted. Before them was woodland. The grass pricked her toes. She could smell the flowers, and hear the wind whistling in the trees. However, it was deceptive. She wasn't taken in by it. Mystery Dungeons were a death trap for the unwary. She had been going through her inventory. Her bag was filled with Apples and Gummies.

"So." Blaze flatly spoke. "This is where Metapod is lost. Somewhere in these woods. Gengar's gang should already be here. Let's go." They entered the woods.

 **Sinister Woods.**

 **4** **th** **Floor**

A violet buzzing drilled into the duo, as the Ledyba's teeth gnawed into her shoulder. Smashing it against the wall, full-out attacking, he kept focused single-mindedly on complete mutilation. In another situation, this would be admired. But not now.

 _Finally,_ a stray Ember knocked the creature out. Massaging her mangled, chewed shoulder, Foxglove swallowed a gummi, ignoring Blaze smashing a indistinguishable Pokémon against the wall.

Meanwhile, the Ledyba tilted its head to one side thoughtfully, respect glittering in his eyes... No. That wasn't possible.

"Erm... Blaze?"

"Yes?" Blaze casually spoke, crunching on a apple he had found, while stomping on a persistent Oddish's head, which suddenly split, bleeding onto the Charmander's foot. It was kicked next to the smashed-up Pokémon next to the wall.

"Could you look at this Ledyba?"

Blaze's mouth hit the ground, screaming in excitement. "Foxglove! Don't you realise what has happened?!" His hands grabbed her shoulder, ignoring her wince, stuttering in glee, "Occasionally wild Pokémon respect you enough to see obey you! I thought this was just a myth! It... It's like... Its more common than Shinys, but not by much! All you need to do now is give it a name."

The naming part wasn't hard. All she had to do was look at her shoulder.

*Mangle joined Team Wildfire to go on adventures!*

 **Sinister Woods**

 **13** **th** **Floor**

Team Wildfire climbed the last stair and emerged to a forest clearing, with the sun shining down. Spearow chirped to each other, hidden in the leafy trees. Grass waved in the wind. A path led through the trees into darkness, boarded by red flowers which resembled Poppies. Foxglove and Blaze looked around, appreciating the scenery after being stuck underground for twelve floors. Mangle zipped around the floor nervously, his bulging eyes seeking enemies everywhere.

"Mangle, calm down." Foxglove spoke shortly.

The Ledyba had proved useful in a battle, saving her neck when they had been confronted by a slice-'n-dice-happy Scyther and a combination-of-Confusion-and-Hypnosis Exeggutor team. But the downside was that the newest member was jumping at shadows 24/7.

"Wow." Blaze spoke, awed. "We came quite a way into this forest."

' _Well, yes. We might have.'_ She thought calmly, under shimmering she flipped. _'How could you not notice going through thirteen floors!?'_

Mangle gave her a quick glance. _Calm down._ His eyes told her. The odd thing about Mangle was that he didn't talk. At least, not in words. He spoke with his eyes and body language. Blaze had told her that recruited Pokémon _were_ able to talk, it just took a few minutes. But strangely, Mangle showed no sign of words. Though his powers of body language was second to none.

Puffing gasps and a cackle of: "Hold it right there!" made Mangle turn around and immediately fly off in the opposite direction, ramming into a nearby tree not five yards away, so eager was he to flee.

Foxglove was confronted by the sight of Team Meanies, who walked around the Pokémon wordlessly, putting themselves between them and Mangle. Not to mention the path onwards. Gengar was red in the face from walking. She snickered. _'He can't walk thirteen floors, with frequent rest stops by the look of it, without looking like he's about to collapse from lack of oxygen? That would explain why we beat them here, when they'd had a head start.'_ Her humour showed on her face. Gengar scowled darkly. His gaze flittered to Mangle, then back to Foxglove and Blaze, a smirk playing on his face.

"Keke! You know who's going to get to Metapod first? We are!"

' _I beg to differ.'_

"So, for you to go ahead..." Gengar smirked. "We can't let that happen, can we?"

She sighed, her gaze flickering from herself, to Blaze, to Mangle, to Gengar. And then back to her. Team Meanies leered.

The battle began.

"Wh-What?!" Blaze cried out, terrified at the thought of battling two fully evolved Pokémon, plus an Ekans, the detached Charmander from Tiny Woods gone. He yelped as Foxglove stamped on his foot. Hard.

"Shut up." She hissed. "We're going to fight them whatever happens, so don't turn chicken on me. Act like you're brave. If you can't, then help Mangle." Her voice then became sharper, of one used to command. "Mangle, get away! You would be butchered by these three; you're way too under-levelled. Blaze, stay by me, and when I want help, help me instead of standing there!" She leapt back as Medicham aimed a Thunderpunch at her stomach, the curled fist crackling and sparking. The electricity burned on contact, winding her.

"Hey, Gengar!" Blaze cried, burning welts onto Ekans with Ember, "Why do you always mess with us?" Medicham left his partner, and ganged up on him. From behind. The first thing he knew about it was Confusion. Blaze clapped his hands to his head. It felt like poison was being poured inside his skull, obliterating everything around him.

As a result, he didn't hear Gengar's answer. "You are in the way of our mission." Gengar smirked darkly. His claws flashed out catching Foxglove in her wounded shoulder, reopening and ripping it. He smiled, pleased at the blood on his claws. "And whoever gets in our way... We'll destroy." He nodded to Ekans.

The snake slipped through the grass. Before he knew what hit him, Ekans leered at Mangle, his eyes glowing red. His red outline headed towards the Ledyba, and when it hit, the eye outline disappeared and the same red outline surrounded Mangle, dropping his defence. Freezing him in place. Worse, his body slumped over, losing all of his power and energy, as it was transferred to Ekans.

Without a word, the snake's mouth opened, widening, until it was bigger than Mangle, who watched without seeing, listlessly on the floor, up at the towering purple rattlesnake, devoid of his usual energetic self. Ekans' jaws closed over Mangle with a crunching snap. He turned to the watching fighters, pleased. One of the victim's shattered wing cases, along with a crushed wing, as beautiful as stained glass, dangled from his jaw, swaying in the wind, hanging on by a thread. After a time, the crinkling and crisping stopped. The lump in Ekans' mouth stopped moving. The snake contorted, gulping, squeezing his prey down his throat, into his digestive system.

A transparent, pale blue Ledyba surveyed the scene pitying, before flying into the air.

The Confusion wore off. Blaze used Metal Claw, kicking and slashing Medicham into unconsciousness, and her body looking like she had charged through inch-long thorns. Ekans was busy eating some way off, but he looked up to a cry of "Ember!" The last he saw of the battle was red-hot bullets zeroing in on him.

Gengar panicked when he saw his team fall. It had been interesting to see his opponents reaction to the death of their teammate. But now he was regretting it. They fought with a vengeance, not killing, but wounding, pouring their emotions into their moves. He regained his composure, but it shook him. Beaten by teenagers. Ignoring the fact that he was only a few years older than them. _'Well,'_ he vowed, shaking it off. _'I'm not going down without a fight.'_

Gengar smirked. He put his hands together and released black and yellow interwoven, multicoloured circles from his hands that expanded as they moved towards Blaze. The Charmander swayed groggily, his eyelids flickering, before he slumped to the ground, deaf the world.

' _Gengar is a Ghost type. So he will be weak to Dark type attacks, but I should watch out for that Hypnosis.' Her thoughts took a different track. 'He has already has Hypnosis and Lick. He might know Spite, which is useful (from his view) if used wisely. He also might know Curse, which will be a bitch-'_

Her thoughts came to a halt, as a horizontal phantom nail slammed into Gengar's head. It was hammered in three times before disappearing. Each time made him flinch. When it was over, the same nail hovered over her. _Bam. Bam. Bam._ Each time, the pain knocked her off her feet. Red-hot knives scraped and clashed inside her skull. The nail was a phantom, but it _felt_ like a nail was being hammered into her head. When it was over, she felt weak and feverish. Gengar was breathing heavily.

Foxglove rammed into him, her body outlined in dark purple. Curse had cut his HP in half, but it would reduce hers by a quarter. And Pursuit was super-effective. She collapsed as her energy left her in a black lump.

"One more Pursuit." She told herself. "One more should do it." It didn't. The curse hit again. "One... More" She gasped, "Time." If this didn't work, the curse would kill her. Curse was unpredictable. It would kill if not used properly. She gathered energy, and shoved Gengar into a tree. He didn't get up.

Blaze's eyelid's inched open in confusion. "Wha... What happened?" The Treecko didn't feel like explaining.

Gengar got up last, grunting from his wounds. His eyes travelled over her, a faint frown on his features. He waved his claw dismissively, "Pah! You only won because you were lucky. Next time, we won't go so easy on you! Come on!" He addressed the last two words to Ekans and Medicham, who shoved the newly-awakened Blaze into the dust. Foxglove didn't turn around, but she could feel Gengar's eyes boring into her from behind. She shuddered slightly, blaming the breeze.

 **I will get this story finished and sort out all the mysteries at the ending. I won't be doing the post-ending part of the game, you will find out why in the ending (if I ever get round to that part, considering how far I am in-game, playing as a** _ **different**_ **Pokémon to cap it all).**

 **In my fanfic (in this story and sequels), there will be Pokémon attacking humans, humans attacking Pokémon, Pokémon attacking Pokémon, abuse, and, of course, character death.**

 **So, R.I.P Mangle the Ledyba. You always wanted to fly.**

 **In-game, I fainted and he left the team, but I prefer the death thing better, plot-wise.**

 **A little note I'd like to point out that this is** _ **not**_ **a Nuzlocke. If I want a recruited Pokémon to die, and then if it faints, I will write it down as dead. If the partner and/or player Pokémon faint... Well, if I** _ **was**_ **Nuzlocking** _ **,**_ **I would have died** _ **thrice**_ **in the Gengar battle,** _ **thrice**_ **in the Zapdos battle, once with Moltres, (Thank the lord for Reviver Seeds! I had a Reviver Seed in the Moltres battle, but I... Well, we'll get to that later, but I had no Reviver Seeds in the other battles) and once in Magma Cavern to a Magnitude Graveler while Blaze was using Dig. I needed to restock** _ **all**_ **of my items after that, as I had taken** _ **every single one**_ **to Magma Cavern.** _ **300**_ _ **Gravel Rocks**_ **. 3 Escape Orbs. 1 Petrify Orb. 10 Huge Apples. 17 Iron Thorns. And all. My.** _ **20,000. Frigging. Poké.**_

 **All in all, I'm a terrible Nuzlocker. All my Pokémon keep dying.**

 **During my Playthrough of Red Rescue Team, I kept expecting the Skarmory to take revenge. I was disappointed when it never showed up. I might change that.**

 **I will be having a break from this story for a while. Sorry. I am entering Year 11, I will up to my neck in coursework, homework, ect.**

 **Here is another thing. Please warn me if my Oc's are or are turning into Mary-sues or OP.**

 **Also, while I am creating the next chapter, I am going to ask the reviewers a question, which I would like them to answer in the reviews.**

 **What should the protagonist's name be in the sequel (Omega Ruby)?**

 **Alpha**

 **Omega**

 **Sapphire**

 **Ruby**

 **Ocean**

 **Terra**

 **I will not update the next chapter until I get the answer to this question, which will mean a couple of votes for each one, because I can't choose myself.**

 **Sorry about the lengthily Chapter and AN. Please read and review.**

 **Archeops567 signing out.**


	4. Lightning, Ice and Fire: Vs Zapdos, Pt1

**Sorry about the long wait. What ended the writer's block was a PMD Fanfiction I read, and I then decided to get this chapter up at the start of half-term.**

 **For those of you who are confused, Swagnemite is the recruited Magnemite.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon in any shape, way or form. The only thing I do own is my OC.**

 **Reviews:**

 **Candy Phantom, the game I am playing is Red Rescue Team, not Gates to Infinity.**

 **Chapter 4: Lightning, Fire and Ice, Part 1: Vs Zapdos, Part 1**

 **Last night.**

Blaze whimpered in his sleep. _'No.'_ Fingers shook him. _'Please make it stop!'_ Taunts and yells of hatred. _'I'll do anything!'_ The fingers dug in harder, persisting. The Charmander blinked, his bed soaked in sweat. _'It was only a dream. It was just a dream.'_ He shakily curled into a trembling ball. What time was it? It couldn't be morning, since the torches surrounding him, and the stars above him in a midnight blue sky, showed that it was still night time. Yet something had woken him up.

A chill ran through him. He hadn't dreamt the fingers. Silhouetted against the night sky, blocking out the stars, was a blurred and shadowed figure. Blaze shook his head and blinked, trying to bring it into focus.

"Foxglove?" he asked incredulous, squinting. It wasn't possible. It was at least midnight. What was she doing up at this time? Yet here she was, sharply in focus. "What are you doing here at this time?"

She grabbed his stunned arm, pulling him up. "Training" was the brisk reply.

They wordlessly walked to an empty clearing, a makeshift training arena, which was literally a chalked circle of grass surrounded by trees, big enough for five average sized Pokémon. Blaze, in a dream, went to one side, Foxglove to another.

"I've been thinking, awake all night," she spoke bluntly, "and we need a strategy. A proper strategy. A system of communication during battle, which our enemies can't figure out." She paused for breath. "What I mean is that most Pokémon fight, and rarely let their partners know what they are going to do. What moves they will use, what items, and so on. And if they do, they yell it out for the whole world to hear. But, I've been thinking about this, and we can arrange a signal so we can tell each other what moves we are going to use, without telling our opponents.

"My idea is that when I hold up one finger," she held up her finger left of her middle finger (her fist finger) "this will mean that I am going to use the first move in my slot, eg Bullet Seed. If I am going to use the second move (Hidden Power), I will hold up _these_ " she held up her first and middle (second) finger. "However, if I am going to use my _fourth_ move, I will use all three fingers," she demonstrated, "and then I will reuse my first finger." she held up her first finger, just like when she was going to use move one.

"To signal if I am going to use an item, I will use my _left_ hand. As for what item I will use..." She paused, thinking. "... I will use... I will _show_ the item."

"Note that my right fist will be clenched when I am going to use a move. If I am going to use an item, I will clench my left fist.

Blaze could only form one word: "Why?"

The Treecko's gaze was dark. "Because of Mangle. We were taken by surprise. But his death taught me that this isn't a game. You told me, but Mangle's death made me realise the ruthlessness of this world." A suppressed, yet amused smile flitted across her features. It was gone in a second, but it was there. "You took me, a stranger, into your team. You let me become the leader without question, and an ally died under my leadership. I owe you, Blaze. But we have to become stronger. I won't allow any more deaths if I can help it, but we need to train."

"Now." She spoke, circling cautiously, her narrowed eye fixed on him, in her fighting stance: fists curled and at the ready, straight-backed so she could move quickly, her toe-pads lightly touching the floor and automatically checking the direction of the sun (or moon, in this case). "Let's dance."

 **The next morning.**

Foxglove's eye snapped open. "That dream... Was so much more vivid than the last ones." it was about a Pokémon... A Gardevoir. She said something about a role. A mission. And a reason.

It then floated back to her:

I have wanted to contact you for so long. We all have a roll in life. My role is to guide you through this mess... And I cannot reveal your role...

I will try and explain this... _The Feeling Pokémon said, indicating the world where they met,_ to you as best as I can. _The Psychic/Fairy type said tenderly. Gardevoir's dress floated softly, circling her body rhythmically, even though there was no wind._ This is one of many dimensions in time and space. The general colour reflects your aura and your inner Pokémon. And this dimension is green because you are a Treecko, a Grass type. _Gardevoir telepathically told her._

 _The dimension then flickered for a few seconds. It turned black and purple, and splatters of blood stained the walls. Gardevoir's head flickered around the environment nervously and teleported._

The Treecko shakily got out of bed, almost bumping into the tree, doorframe, and the stool, and walked out of the hut.

After the usual (but sleepy) good morning from Blaze, a stammering, cautious voice timidly came from behind them. "Erm, excuse me..." The two turned around. The Jumpluff from yesterday, the one who had asked for help crouched in a sobbing heap.

' _Right.'_ Foxglove decided briskly, attempting to tell the two brothers apart. _'The one who asked for help is Jumpluff One. The trapped friend is Jumpluff Two.'_

"M-My brother... Shiftry went off to save him... But Shiftry... Hasn't come back yet..." Foxglove did a quick recap of the events of yesterday. _'Shiftry is that greedy, Grass type version of Gengar. He only does things if there's a reward involved. Kind of like me. And I'm going to have to save his ass. I'm_ fed up _of saving Pokémon who can't save themselves!'_ She would never forget the days when she had to rescue a Cacturne, Nidoking, Salamence (and the same Abra _multiple times_ ), from Tiny Woods. _Tiny Woods_ of all places _._ She was Lv 20 now. Tiny Woods seemed like months ago.

Then, she remembered Alakazam. He scared her. His smallest movement showed his authority. She wasn't a psychic, but he had a red flashing light hanging over him, metaphorically. While Blaze and everyone else was in awe of him, she was just terrified of facing him in battle.

 _An Alakazam floated into the scene. While the villagers stepped back in awe, she automatically thought_ 'Alakazam. Psychic type. High special attack and speed, but bad special defence and utter crap attack and defence. He might fall to Gengar or another Ghost or Dark type, but it would depend on his (Alakazam's) moves and the opponent's level.'

Blaze looked shaken up, stammering, "Are you serious?!"

Jumpluff One nodded miserably. "My brother Jumpluff got wedged between some rocks. We Jumpluff can go anywhere we want if we can catch the wind, but..." He trailed off.

' _Well, now you mention it, there wasn't any wind last night,_ _even though the skies were filled with thunderclouds.'_ She pondered.

"-for some reason, the winds haven't blown."

Blaze now had the same puzzled expression as his partner. According to the laws of nature, if there were clouds, there should have been wind. "Not even a breeze? That is strange... It might have something to do with the natural disasters that have been happening lately."

Jumpluff One murmured. "Shiftry's leafy fans can whip up powerful winds."

' _Thank you for that, Mr. Obvious.'_

"We thought that Shiftry's wind would be able to dislodge my brother, but..." at this, Jumpluff One burst into a crying snivelling wreak, unable to say more.

Blaze filled in: "But Shifty hasn't come back yet...? It doesn't sound a very challenging rescue mission..." He originally started off to help Jumpluff, but it ended sounding like he was bullying the crying Pokémon.

Blaze then gritted his teeth, trying not to yell as his partner dug him in the ribs, hissing: "Try to be a bit more sensitive. If Jumpluff One won't co-operate, then we won't be able to get the Poké and the items." Her voice lowered. "And if Jumpluff One won't co-operate because you offended him..." She deliberately left the sentence hanging, leaving Blaze to think it over.

Thankfully, Jumpluff gave no sign of hearing Blaze's comment. Blaze turned to Foxglove, a strange look in his eyes. Attempting to make the best of a bad situation, the Charmander spoke hurriedly, faking a smile with a wordless plead in his eyes. "We'll help Jumpluff. Won't we?" he asked rhetorically.

Foxglove flashed him a glare before nodding.

Blaze turned back to the patiently waiting Jumpluff "We'll look for them." The fire type spoke.

Jumpluff One beamed in joy. "R-Really?! Thank you!"

The Treecko rolled her eye at the happy-go-lucky attitude of the Pokémon here. They were so innocent. Flowers, rainbows, sunshine and daisies.

"No problem! You can count on us!" Blaze promised.

' _Jumpluff One will hold him to that promise, mark my words.'_ Foxglove thought darkly as she noted how their client's eyelashes veiled the flash of cunning in his eyes.

"Let's go, Foxglove!"

The duo walked to Kangaskhan Storage and deposited their money in the bank.

They went to get Swagnemite and then travelled to Silent Chasm.

 **Silent Chasm**

Foxglove pressed her face to the warm rock cliff, and paused to catch her breath. Five hundred feet below, the wind whistled cheerfully through the trees.  
She took a deep breath, and looked up at Jumpluff One, twenty feet above her on the cliff face. Jumpluff One may have been the smallest of their party, but at least he could fly. Blaze was somewhere below her, his claws digging grimly into the unyielding surface like a limpet.

When she had examined the cliff from below this had seemed like a good place to make the ascent. But fact and theory were two very different things. The cliff face was nearly vertical and incredibly dangerous because the slate-like rock crumbled far too easily.  
She raised her arms and extended her fingers as she reached for the next handhold, slightly to the left of her current one. She clung to the jutting rock as small pebbles broke free and clattered down.

Hopefully they didn't hit Blaze.

Foxglove gripped again and then pulled her body another couple of yards up. Her heart was hammering from fear.  
As she neared the top of the cliff the wind blew harder, whistling in her ears. It felt as if it was trying to drag her off the rock that was all that prevented her from falling.  
With a final heave she pushed herself over the top and collapsed among the barren ledge – barren except for the rocks dotted around. Her legs burned fiercely and her hands were bruised and red with innumerable scratches from gripping the rough grating stone.

Silent Chasm reached for the clouds. Wispy pieces floated around the steel-grey cliff. To the left one could see a mountain that rumbled ominously. The entrance was a yawning mouth carved naturally out of the rock.

Blaze was looking over the edge of the cliff, slightly green.

' _Why would you come all the way up here only to find out you're afraid of heights?'_

"This cliff is steep!" Blaze hissed.

Foxglove found it odd that he would point out the obvious when they had been scaling the same cliff five minutes ago.

He turned to Jumpluff One, talking in his normal voice. "So your friend is trapped between some rocks in this canyon on the bottom 10th floor?"

Jumpluff One was now talking in a subdued, timid voice. "Yes."

"It'll be fine." Blaze reassured the Pokémon.

Team Wildfire started to advance into the cave when Jumpluff One spoke up. He drew their attention like a surprising speaker does, when there is nothing more to say. "...Wait!"

"Yes?" Foxglove's voice was sharp and abrupt with impatience. "What is it?"

"There are rumours of a creature that lurks in this chasm..." His face was grave, but his eyes were cruel and eager. He addressed the Treecko, but his eyes were on the Charmander.

Shock was plastered on the fire lizard's face.

Jumpluff hurriedly chattered in reply in a hopeless attempt to reassure them. "But it's only an old wives tale! While it's true Shiftry hasn't returned..." He switched to his concerned face.

Blaze suddenly doubled over, clutching his stomach in agony while Foxglove watched impassionedly as he howled in pretend agony. She was too used to his antics. Whenever Blaze was in the deep claws of terror, he pretended to have stomach ache. It was just his way of relieving stress. It might also be linked to an issue when he felt stressed, his muscles cramped up.

He groaned. "My stomach! It hurts..."

Jumpluff One faked enough concern for it to pass for genuine, "What's wrong?!"

Blaze replied, "It's my stomach! It suddenly cramped up!" He attempted to pin the blame on his breakfast: "Must have been something I ate..." He then turned on his partner. "Foxglove, you're feeling sick too, aren't you? Your stomach hurts too, doesn't it?"

Foxglove knew that Blaze wanted her to back his story up, but she saw no reason to go along with his game. "Nope." She flipped casually. "I'm perfectly fine."

Blaze's face coloured with embarrassment. He'd been humiliated in front of Jumpluff One. He stormed over to her, his eyes burning in anger. "What's the matter, Foxglove?! I needed you to back me up! If you're my partner, you need to be able to read me better!"

She could read him all too easily, but she wasn't in the habit of going along with the rules.

"Blaze." Foxglove spoke curtly. "Aren't you forgetting something?" Confusion flashed in his eyes. "Didn't you have a stomach ache?"

Realisation slowly dawned on him. He dropped eye contact. "Uh... Yes..." He muttered hurriedly "Owowow..." not fooling anyone. "I guess the cramp settled down..." Blaze quickly shrugged it off, laughing to hide his nervousness.

"I just thought I should let you know..." His smile gave his lies away. Almost as an afterthought he added "Be careful." _If you are killed I won't have to pay you w_ as the unspoken thought.

 **Silent Chasm**

 **B1st Floor**

The walls were made of crumbling rock with a few persistent tufts of grass peeking through the cracks. There were a few small rocks and that was it. The floor released clouds of white chalk dust when stepped on.

The dungeon's floor spread into different paths like worms underground. Foxglove pocketed a Gravel Rock and 118 Poké. They picked the path second to the left.

A Teddiursa slashed viciously at Foxglove's stomach, while a second one slammed it's claws into Blaze's face.

Foxglove slammed the Pokémon into the wall and sank her fangs into the downed enemy's neck and shook it like a rag doll. It's feeble scrabbles faded. It's eyes were lifeless, it's body limp. Blaze had ripped the head off his Teddiursa, but not before the creature had tried to rip the muscle from his arm. Blaze's arm was bleeding slightly but he shook it off.

They cautiously turned the corner to see a long, empty corridor that curved to an empty space. They went down another empty path and picked up a Gravel Rock before moving on.

Another junction and two more paths. She took the north one to find three more Gravel Rocks. After some consideration, the Treecko took the eastern path this time.

She was beginning to wish she hadn't chosen this path. It twisted and turned like a meandering river. She turned a bend and her vision flashed white. Another Teddiursa had raked its claws across her body, creating long, bleeding scratches.

A flash of surprising electricity made the enemy's heart stop. Without turning around, Swagnemite was buzzing placidly.

At the end of the path, just when Foxglove had turned to the stairs, a Weedle had launched a String Shot at Blaze, who burned the netting to ash in contempt. He then cut the Pokémon almost in half with a Scratch.

 **B2** **nd** **Floor**

The stubborn grass waved lazily in the wind. That was the first thing she saw when she had climbed the staircase. That and three paths, two which just looped. She took the last path and found the stairs.

The rumbling growl of a Pokémon echoed behind them.

 **B9** **th** **Floor**

The second-to-last floor was a large room, with several hostile Pokémon. A Weedle lashed out a Foxglove, who couldn't dodge in time. The horn on it's head pierced her shoulder. The Treecko grabbed hold of the bug's head, yanked the stinger out and crushed the bug under her foot.

A wave of dizziness swamped her vision. Without looking, she knew that she had been poisoned.

Poison type Pokémon could use the different chemicals in their body to form lethal poisons. Weedle secreted it in their horns, and Arbok secreted it in their fangs. This poison was capable of killing victims. Since poison was normally sent into the bloodstream by the use of a Bite or Poison Sting, the victim's organs were either melted from the inside or the poison would shut down the internal organs.

For some reason, the only antidote to poisoning was a Pecha Berry. It somehow neutralised the effects of the venom, like parsley to garlic.

Another odd cure was that if the victim managed to get up the stairs to the next floor, the poison status would be gone. It was firmly under the 'bullshit clause', and it made no logical sense, but it worked.

She couldn't worry about that right now, because the Weedle might be dead, but Blaze was grappling with a Farfetch'd and Swagnemite had just electrocuted a burnt Yanma.

Blaze had somehow managed to strangle the bird with its own leek.

They locked eyes. Foxglove mouthed _poison_ to Blaze's wordless question. If she revealed her weakness the wild Pokémon would be on her like wasps to a jam pot. She forced her trembling legs up and staggered, but managed to stay up, swaying slightly.

"Swagnemite, cover us!" Blaze barked at the Steel/Electric type. The Magnemite buzzed puzzled as Blaze wasn't the one for bossing. A steely glare from the Fire type made the teammate obey.

Blaze offered his shoulder to the Treecko, but she declined. She was able to walk, but it wouldn't last. She _knew_ it. She gave a hacking cough, and caught a quick glimpse of something black before she rubbed the smear down her side.

She didn't remember leaving the room.

A Trapinch growled, it's feral eyes demonic. The Pokémon spat a hissing snarl as it launched itself at Foxglove's throat. The Treecko twisted to one side, but she knew it was futile. She could see three Trapinches'.

It happened as if in slow motion. The wild Pokémon's shining jaws gaped open. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

A metallic, screeching clang filled the room. It was like cutely scraped over a plate.

Swagnemite had blocked the Trapinch's attack, and the latter now held the former in its merciless maw. The Magnemite flashed warningly, but the Trapinch paid no heed. Electricity didn't affect ground types. It's steel grip was like a vice, slowly grinding into the steel body of the Magnemite. Cogs and gears creaked under the strain.

Swagnemite eye revolved in his metallic body. _Run_ it said.

And Foxglove ran. She bolted to the stairs and her feet pounded up them, ignoring Blaze's yells.

 **B10** **th** **Floor**

Foxglove and Blaze advanced cautiously into the room. Their grief was locked inside them.

Jumpluff Two floated merrily towards them, free as a bird.

' _Shiftry must have set him free.'_

When he reached them, Jumpluff Two curled up in a terrified ball, shaking like a leaf in a gale.

"Are you alright?" Blaze asked in worry. "Did Shiftry-"

Jumpluff Two whimpered. "I'm fine, but..." He turned to look at something behind him. "Shiftry is at the back..." He wouldn't say more and hurried out.

The second Jumpluff was just as selfish – if worse – that the first one. Jumpluff One was selfish. Jumpluff Two was a coward.

It was odd that Jumpluff went beck through the dungeon, and not through the hole in the ceiling, which was like a wide chimney.

Foxglove and Blaze ran to see Shiftry badly beaten up – almost dead. Fur hid the details and full extent of his injuries, but the white and brown fur was quickly becoming red. Judging by the cuts, he had been attacked by barbed wings, which pointed to a Flying type, but the burn marks indicated a Fire type; but a powerful Electric type could burn with powerful electricity...

Blaze gasped. "Shiftry! Who did this?!"

Shiftry raised his head a foot off the ground. She could see how much that little bit of movement cost him. When he spoke, it was like he was being strangled. His voice was but a hiss, a scratch, a deathly rasp. It was worse than gravel dragged over rocks. "Forget about me..." Each word was a struggle to wrestle out of his mutilated body. Shiftry managed to put emphasis into his voice. "Get... away... from... here! It's coming!" He fell to the blood-splattered ground, his energy spent.

"Shifty!" Blaze hissed. "Tell us who did this to you!"

"Someone brutal. Someone who views the life of others as nothing. Worthless." Foxglove's voice was cold. "Someone who would kill without remorse."

"Someone like _me?_ " A voice enquired.

Then the lights went out.

' _How is it possible to turn off the lights or blot out the sun? If I learned how to do that, it would be the first step to world domination. I would hold the sun hostage until-'_

When the lights turned back on, a Pokémon had the helpless Shiftry in its cruel talons. Blaze stepped forward in anger, but the Pokémon casually tightened his grip on his prisoner, chucking coldly. The Charmander froze.

"Who are you?" Blaze asked, reigning in his temper.

Foxglove answered for him. "Its Zapdos, an Electric/Flying type."

Blaze was about to scream. "He's not a god. He's more of an up jumped force of nature who wants people to believe that he's a god."

Zapdos roared and bolts of lightning slammed into the ground, splitting into different strands like a many-headed snake and wrapping themselves around Team Wildfire. "If you wish to save Shiftry," he addressed the paralysed Pokémon, "come to Mt. Thunder."

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 _She was dreaming once more. Only this time, it wasn't Gardevoir. It was a black and white Pokémon, it's face blurred. And she wasn't in the green dimension. They were at the foot of a large mountain. Behind them were mountains larger than the one in front of them. "Who are you?" She asked in puzzlement._

 _The Pokémon had it's back to her, looking at the single mountain, but at those words it's face turned slightly so the Treecko could see a little bit of it. The rest was veiled in shadows._ Who I am doesn't matter. I may be your ally, but I may not be. It depends if you believe _her_. That's all you need to know.

Something was odd about the conversation. It was only after the dreamscape had fell away, and when she was returned to the real world, when Foxglove realised what was bothering her. That mysterious Pokémon had used telepathy.

 **And there you have it. Blaze isn't what he seems to be. Team Wildfire have a code they can use during battles, and the Zapdos fight is in the next chapter.**

 **I already have a few of the sequel chapters written down, and a few chapters of this fic, but progress will be slow.**


	5. Lightning, Ice and Fire: Vs Zapdos, Pt2

**Well look who is back!**

 **I split Chapter Four in two because it was too big already. I decided to skip the Mt. Thunder dungeon, as nothing happened in there worthy of note.**

 **Who is hyped for Sun and Moon?! I watched the trailer and the white lion looks cool, but the bat thing looks awsome! I'm so getting Moon when it comes out! Those starters look cool, and I cannot wait for the new fossil Pokémon! The graphics are great, and in the trailer I noticed that the wooden stand thing the starters are on looks like some sort of ancient tribal thing! I cannot let Sun and Moon take up this fanfic, but I am so hyped!**

 **Chapter 5: Lightning, Fire and Ice, Part 1: Vs Zapdos, Part 2**

Zapdos' eyes burned like red coals and a strange light glinted in those fathomless depths. Foxglove's index finger on her left hand flicked up, and the smuggled glimmer of an Orb flickered in her closed fist. She leapt up into the air, and threw the Petrify Orb. Zapdos saw it coming and simply picked it up in his talons, hooting with laughter. Shock ruled her face, as that was her only Petrify Orb.

Foxglove recovered since Blaze was waiting for her commands. Her right hand was curled into a fist, with the Charmander tense beside her. Her index finger crept up. _'One.'_ She shot out gold seeds surrounded in a light green aura from her mouth at the Lightning Pokémon at a high speed. Without pausing, her eyes met Blaze's, and her middle finger shot up. "Two."

Blaze's eyes glimmered in understanding. He yelled as his right claw became metallic silver, "Metal Claw!" His claws glinted in the sun as the lizard raked his claws down Zapdos' face. The Pokémon roared and stabbed Blaze with its beak, more like a vicious sabre than a bird's beak. It repeatedly stabbed the Charmander, who kept rolling out of the way. With each thrust, the weapon sounded like a frenzied screech and threw dust into the air.

Foxglove grabbed a Gravel Rock and hurled it at Zapdos' wing. It connected with a whip-like crack to create a bruise that was brimming with all the different shades of the colour wheel.

Zapdos snarled in anger. "Witness the power of a legend!"

He unfurled his wings to their full span, which rattled like falling nails on tiles, and poured high voltage electricity into them. He winced slightly from the forming bruise and then slashed at the Treecko with his wings.

Foxglove gasped involuntarily as the attack hit her with the force of a hurricane. The barbed wings opened cuts in her skin, leaving thin trails of blood. The voltage swept through her thin body and slammed into the ground, giving her no time to breathe. The current was so strong that it felt more like a tornado of fire than a bolt of lightning.

Yellow bolts of lightning flashed in the sky and cannoned into Blaze. The Charmander writhed and screamed in agony. His veins felt like they were exploding as he launched into uncontrollable spasms.

Zapdos whirled around cackling madly, streaking through the air. He was screeching in joy. The Lightning Pokémon grabbed Blaze and pinned the lizard firmly down underneath his foot. He pressed down slightly and smiled when his victim started to choke for air. Zapdos let his prey suffer for a bit more before he lifted his foot but still kept it firmly planted on Blaze's chest. His partner cautiously approached. She froze when Zapdos pressed his foot down ever so slightly.

Blaze had moaned throughout the whole journey through Mt Thunder. The reason: all of the Gravel Rocks and Blast Seeds that Foxglove saw, she crammed them into the bag. As a result they had to throw out several boxes and bands and couldn't carry as much food as they wanted. The food crisis was where they nearly fainted from hunger several times, but the Treecko was adamant about throwing out the Gravel Rocks and Blast Seeds.

And now Blaze wasn't complaining.

Foxglove kept a tight hold on the Blast Seed and vaulted onto Zapdos' back. Before the monster could react, the three sucker pads on her fingers glowed green, matching energy beams extended from their tips. The beams wrapped around Zapdos' body, draining its life energy and then receded back into the Treecko's fingers when the attack was complete.

When it was over, Zapdos swayed weakly. He lifted his eyes through a tremendous amount of effort. The legendary slowly revolved his unwieldy head and stared at the Treecko perched on his back. He uttered a hacking cough, as his spear-like beak clacked together in incredulousness. "It'll take more than that... to end me. You think a grass type attack can kill me?" When Zapdos was finished, he spat something on the ground. The Treecko caught a glimpse of a dark stain before it was crushed underneath his foot.

Her smile was dark. "No. That was only to weaken you. _This_ will."

Foxglove leapt onto Zapdos' head and wrenched his sword-like beak apart. She plucked the Blast Seed from the pouch on her back, roughly shoved the seed into his mouth, down his gullet and used another Blast Seed to toss him away. The Treecko roughly grabbed the unconscious Blaze and threw him out of the way unceremoniously.

The Lightning Pokémon was dead. He knew it. They knew it. But he could still try to kill them. If he was going down, he would take them with him.

Zapdos arched back his neck. The form of the Lightning Pokémon was veiled in roiling and crackling balls of lightning bolts. He summoned bolts of lightning that cannoned into the duo, forcing them to the edge of the cliff.

The precarious ledge crumbled away like steam from a kettle. She reached for a handhold that wasn't there and she fell. Her scrabbling fingers desperately pinched the unstable ledge. Foxglove knew that it wouldn't last. She could already feel her fingers, along with the cliff, falling away.

A pale blue glow surrounded her and Blaze's bodies. It was a Psychic attack, where the opponent could control the target's body with its mind alone. The Psychic pulled Foxglove off the cliff and gently set them down in the centre of the peak, but a safe distance from Zapdos.

Foxglove looked at Zapdos. Zapdos looked at Foxglove. Their eyes met. He seemed to be about to say something and he made a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob.

Zapdos' head exploded open in a spray of blood and bits of gore. His head flopped loosely about on what remained of tendons and scraps of muscle like a doll. Gallons of blood sprayed from the mangled stump and fell like rain. The blast from the explosion almost took Foxglove off her feet.

The Treecko felt something firm splash against her body. She pressed her hand against where she had felt whatever had hit her. When she checked what it was she felt something liquidy. It was a shredded piece of flesh, like something you would eat. Not like a Pokémon. Not like a Pokémon at all. From the shape, it looked like a surviving part of Zapdos' mangled brain. Soft and squishy, oozing and wrinkled like an unripe shrivelled apple. Foxglove returned her hand to her side, noticing that it was now covered in blood.

Zapdos was now all over the left side of her ribcage. He was soaking wet on the left side of her face and all over her hands. She probed her tongue around and felt the metallic taste and sickening stench of blood. She shuddered.

Where Zapdos had been, there was only his headless corpse that sprouted crimson gore. Ragged and tattered pieces of flesh were precariously attached to his neck. His head had been ripped apart but one of his revolving, bloodshot, veined eyes lay a few feet away, lifeless and dull. The beak had nearly impaled Blaze, quivering like a thrown javelin less than a few centimetres away from his pulsing neck.

She heard footsteps that made the ground tremble and armour that rattled like bones. Wing beats that were more like sails creaking over a strained mast. Team Act. How that lumbering Tyranitar had got up here was anybody's guess. Charizard and Alakazam would had flew or levitated.

Her eye quickly assessed the bloody scene. _'No one can see this. If they knew that we had killed a force of nature – in their eyes a god...'_ The Treecko hurriedly wiped the blood off her body. Foxglove swallowed once, and then approached the body.

Up close, it wasn't so bad. _'The dead can't hurt you.'_ She repeated, chewing her ragged lip. Before her nerve fell, Foxglove shoved the corpse towards the edge. The ground was smeared with ominous dark stains and drag marks, but Zapdos' body was teetering on the edge. She adjusted her position. ' _One more push, and it will be over,'_ Foxglove told herself as she heaved.

The mountainous body seemed like a grain of sand as it hurtled down the mountain, jolted and crushed by the treacherous, jutting, dagger-like rocks. If the rocks didn't mangle the body, the scavengers would. The evidence of her crime would be destroyed.

Team Act had been nothing but helpful, but they had an ulterior motive just like everyone else. If they knew that she had killed Zapdos, then they would kill her for a murderer.

Foxglove gritted her teeth and grabbed Blaze's arm as she lifted him up, grunting slightly at the weight. She slung the limp Charmander over her back like luggage, along with the true bag. The Treecko grabbed the unconscious, badly beaten Shiftry and started to leave. Almost as an afterthought, she yanked the long knife-like beak out of the ground. It would make a good weapon.

When Team ACT came upon the scene Zapdos, Shiftry and Team Wildfire had gone. All that remained were the bloody footprints of Treecko, Charmander and Zapdos printed into the dust-streaked rock. Drag-tracks and dark stains littered the ground. Other than that, there was no hard evidence that could be directly linked to Team Wildfire.

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If Shiftry had looked bad when they found him in Mt. Thunder, he looked increasingly worse as the return journey progressed. His powerful, muscular limbs were locked into paralysis and his face was ravaged with emotional pain, to say nothing of physical. His rescuers had to half carry, half drag him. The two friends had been walking back to the base when Alakazam had blocked their way. From then on, things went swiftly downhill. Or uphill, it depended on the interpretation.

 _You went to Mt. Thunder to challenge Zapdos, and here you are, alive, with Shiftry, with Zapdos missing in action. You are no ordinary Treecko._ Alakazam stated bluntly. _My friend Tyranitar here_ , the psychic motioned to the green armoured dinosaur, _said that it was a wonder that two unevolved Pokémon made Zapdos seemingly... vanish._ The look he gave them and the deliberate pause told them what he was thinking. He didn't know what had happened, he had just guessed. But his guesses were dangerously accurate.

"You're awfully strong for a regular Treecko." Charizard commented.

' _What? It's not as if I'm a shiny... Oh..._ Oh.'

The quick glance he shared with Alakazam told all. _'Charizard said that so that Alakazam would be able to comment on it. I don't know how, but he knows that I'm a-'_ Foxglove stopped herself from finishing the thought. Psychic types, especially powerful ones, could read minds and shift through memories without their target even knowing it. Alakazam was just speaking to them to bring up memories to the surface which he could then inspect at leisure, and fresh ones worked best. He was probably reading her and Blaze's mind without them even knowing. _'That would explain why he knows so much.'_ She couldn't let Alakazam know that she knew. Even her innermost thoughts weren't safe. Talk about a breach of now that dickhead was snooping about in her head and there wasn't a thing she could do to stop it. Bastard. She carefully kept her thoughts away from anything human-related, but Alakazam's eye's gleamed. It was too late. He knew, and Blaze would crack under pressure.

 _After leaving Butterfree and Caterpie to their own devices, Foxglove followed Blaze up the path. The Charmander was on the verge of asking about her past, but the Treecko beat him to it._

" _Don't even think about it." She hissed. Blaze gulped and stepped back nervously as she lay down the rules venomously. "If you ever,_ ever _tell anyone – Pokémon, sane, or wild – that I am a former human or a human-turned-Pokémon..." Foxglove growled ferociously. She grabbed the Charmander's wrist and bent it back, so tears sprung to his eyes unbidden. She pulled him closer, speaking softly. Foxglove laid down each word like a curse, slowly pronouncing – and meaning – every single one. "I. Will._ End. _You."_

 _I sensed it when we first met..._ Alakazam murmured. _Perhaps... You aren't a Pokémon, are you?_

At those words, Tyranitar, Charizard and Blaze looked shocked. The first two because they had probably been ordered to put on an act. The last one on the list because he blindly trusted Alakazam. His eyes, the leader of Team ACT could do no wrong. "How do you know that?!" Blaze screeched. With those simple words he had told the psychic all he needed to know. All Alakazam had to do was stay silent and let Blaze spill the beans. The Fire type couldn't stop now. "But you're right. Foxglove isn't a Pokémon."

The object that this discussion revolved around remained silent throughout this exchange, glowering at her partner menacingly.

"Foxglove is a human." Blaze continued.

At those four words Team ACT had varying responses. Blaze's first reaction had been to laugh at her, putting it down out of hand. That had been before her violent reaction, though. Afterwards, Blaze had been more inclined to listen to her tale. Charizard's and Tyranitar's reactions were stereotypical. First the shock, then the disbelief. Gouts of thick black smoke were expelled from the fire dragon's nostrils with snorts of disbelief and Tyranitar's bellowing laugh almost split Foxglove's ear drums.

"And I suppose you fell from the sky to get here as well?" Charizard snickered.

Alakazam glared at his team who were all but paralysed with laughter. _Do not laugh at the truthful, for the joke will be on you. Blaze is telling the truth._ He scolded harshly.

Tyranitar sobered up immediately. "You are not one to support such an obvious lie, Alakazam. If you say they're telling the truth, then I believe you." Charizard mutely nodded in agreement.

 _This is interesting._ Alakazam commented. _I've always wondered what humans were like, and now I can get a first-hand experience._ The psychic looked at the Treecko expectantly, ignoring her seething look. If words and thoughts were daggers, she would have thrown each and every single one of them into his smug face until Alakazam's head was a literal pincushion.

"Foxglove doesn't understand anything about what she used to be, either." Blaze stumbled.

' _Yes! We_ finally _get on with some plot development!'_

"-She... She cannot... She can't remember... anything."

' _How do you intrude on my previous life now, O Great and Mighty Psychic?'_ Foxglove taunted Alakazam with her sarcastic use of his title, laying the flattery on thick.

"She just woke up one morning as a Pokémon." Blaze said apologetically. _And punched me when I didn't believe her,_ Blaze's eyes told her. A sudden flash of inspiration came to the Fire type's eyes. "Alakazam, you know everything there is to know, right?"

 _My knowledge is limited..._ The psychic warned carefully. _But yes, I do know quite a lot..._

"Do you know why Foxglove became a Pokémon?" Blaze enquired. Even Foxglove, in her suspiciousness, was on tender hooks as she waited on Alakazam's answer.

Everyone had their eyes on Blaze, but Foxglove's eyes were on Alakazam's face. As a result she saw what the others missed; a shadow crossed his face. It flashed through his eyes so fast that the Treecko was hardly certain that she had seen it, but in that single moment she knew with absolute certainty that her being a human-turned-Pokémon was not a good thing. Contained in Alakazam's eyes was the look of someone who was going to summon his dog to his side, not to walk it but to drown it. Drowning a dog that someone was fed up with was perfectly acceptable. But it would be someone who would do so with pity and genuine regret. Foxglove looked into those eyes, and she shuddered inwardly at her revelation.

Alakazam had a dark, ruthless side underneath the veil of helpfulness. If he had to do a task that was dirty his hands with blood and shit he would do it and then tell himself that it was necessary for peace. But Foxglove couldn't imagine the lengths Alakazam would go to for the "greater good." Nothing of what she thought showed on face. Not even the slightest flicker.

 _No... I can't tell that._ Alakazam said. Foxglove knew that he was lying without a shred of conscience. She may not have been a psychic but his eyes told her as easy as reading an open book. He knew something, but was choosing to withhold the information for an unknown reason.

Blaze's face fell dejectedly. "I thought that you'd know..." he murmured quietly.

 _However... There is a way for unveiling the truth._

The Charmander's eyes brightened with that treacherous flare of hope sparking to life. Foxglove didn't like how he said "the truth" one little bit. It was like a warning bell clanging inside her head, tolling ominously.

Blaze was ecstatic, "Oh, really? How?" His voice perked up and his eyes held an alight gleam.

 _Make way to the Hill of the Ancients._ Alakazam replied. _There, you will find a Pokémon that stares into the sun all day..._

' _How is he not blind if he looks at the sun 24/7?'_

 _A Pokémon who is said to see the future... Xatu is his name. He should shed light on your puzzling friend._

' _No, I'm not puzzling, you dick!'_ Foxglove exclaimed crossly. _'I'm just a friend who has a puzzle._ '

They continued back to the base to plan for the journey to the Hill of the Ancients in silence, only stopping to drop off Shiftry in Pokémon Square. After they had done that, they went back to the base to plan for the journey to the Hill of the Ancients.

Meanwhile Team Act watched them pass staring at their retreating backs. After a long pause, Charizard broke the silence scuffling his scaled feet uneasily on the dusty ground. "Alakazam," he ventured, "I know you too well." Charizard started tentatively, then marching on recklessly. "You're not completely ignorant about this, are you?" The dragon paused, and then said "you know something, don't you?"

Alakazam paused. He didn't want to answer the question but he knew that he had to. However, he would not give anything away just yet. _Yes,_ he eventually replied, _I do have an idea, but the mere thought of it concerns me. If I heed this dangerous thought it would take us all down a very dark path. It should go unspoken for now._ He spoke carefully and diplomatically though inside his own head, in his one private place, he muttered in a muted whisper under his breath _'For their sake.'_

 **And that's this chapter done!**


	6. Chapter 6: The Premonition

**I would like to say this before the next paragraph causes a misunderstanding. I am touched by the reviews, the people who have followed my story, and those who have favourited it. Thank you.**

 **But before I start this chapter I have something to say. The quality of these last few (and supposedly the ones in the future) is appalling and no pathetic excuses of mine can change that. For this I would like to apologise to those of you who have the patience to read this shit.**

 **Chapter 6: The Premonition**

Foxglove knew the dark expanse she stood in was the result of a dream, not simply the effects of unconsciousness. The darkness seemed too vivid, if possible, to be anything but a dream. And yet it was vastly different from the other dreams she had. The main difference being that it wasn't green.

Within the darkness of the dream, something stirred. At first, they sounded like distant voices, but like a tidal wave approaching shore, their soft whispers grew until they resembled the tortured screams of the damned.  
Foxglove clutched the sides of her head in an attempt to block out their screams, but they broke through this barrier as their amplified voices circled around her.

" _Why am I still alive? Why am I not dead? Why are you doing this?" whimpered a high, thin voice of a child, a little girl._

"Shut up! Stop it!" Foxglove screamed, but the voices only grew louder.

 _Shadowy figures were crowded round a grimy bed where a largish Pokémon lay gasping for air._ The sickening stench of burning wafted up the Treecko's nostrils, making her cough. But the figures took no notice.

" _It would be a crime to let it continue to live. Every moment is pure agony as it slowly dies from the ruptured organs." an educated voice said, eying the thrashing body curiously as if it was an exotic beast on the dissecting table. One shadow turned its face back to the bed to avoid punching the insensitive bastard._

"Please stop! I don't want to hear you!" Foxglove pleaded, but the voices didn't heed her order.

 _The Pokémon on the bed looked up at the people standing over it. "Kill... me..."_

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Please stop!" Foxglove cried, tears welling up from the pain. Suddenly the screaming voices ceased.

"Painful, isn't it?" a single, cold voice spoke. "But you know what they say: no pain, no gain. If you want your memories back you will have to fight harder than that... but only if I decide to give them back. Now, I suggest you wake up, Foxglove. Wake up… and see past the corruption."

Flailing her arms around in panic, Foxglove effectively shredded the soft blankets covering her. Panting heavily, her eyes darted around the room she was in for the strange voice from a few seconds earlier.

After confirming that the room was empty of everyone but herself, she began to worry.  
' _I-I'm hearing voices inside my head. Brief flashes of memories. Am I going crazy? I must be, because no normal person hears things like that.'_ She glanced at each of the corners of the room to make sure no one was pulling a prank on her. Her psyche wasn't in the best state to handle someone's cruel attempt of a joke the moment.

She shook the thoughts of potential insanity away. This wasn't the time to start doubting her mental state. She began to truly observe the base which she had previously taken no notice of before in an attempt to clear her mind.

For the first time in the base she looked at the faded map. it seemed to have decayed and the ancient paper creaked and groaned if one walked by it too heavily. The aroma was the soothing smell of ancient paper but it was yellowed with age, cracked and curling around the edges, and looked like it would collapse into an acrid heap of dust if looked at. It was pinned on the wall unsteadily and drunkenly by shoddy workmanship, but it was one of the sadly rare few maps that showed all the islands as well as the land of all three continents. But the Treecko only studied the Air Continent.

There was a pyramid built entirely of clouds north-east of the mainland in the sky, in the top right-hand corner of the map. Mt. Thunder was marked by a grey mountain tipped with dark storm clouds and lightning bolts. Much further south was a volcano with little rivers of larva creeping out. Even further south was a blizzard-blasted frigid wasteland – a vast area in the grip of eternal winter. Directly south of Pokémon Square was a massive desert dotted with rocks and quicksand. A little bit south were colossal waves that scattered froth and droplets of water that threatened to swallow the brave ships or the odd little islands with a single palm tree. Two large islands completed the map, one seated in the top left-hand corner and the other in the bottom left-hand corner of the map. The one at the top had four notable features going clockwise: a mountain range like the spines of a lizard, a cold north wind, a field of fire that roared and spat glowing embers, and an ominous thundercloud whose lightning branching into several different forks.

' _I might look at those islands closer when this is all over.'_

"Good morning, Foxglove." Blaze greeted her, "yesterday I did some checking around," he started to explain, "it turns out that the Hill of the Ancients is in somewhere called the Great Canyon."

"Good work," she nodded to him. "I checked the map and the Great Canyon is far to the south of our base, so we should pack enough supplies to last for two days." Foxglove continued without inflection.

"Foxglove?" Blaze questioned.

"What?" she snapped.

"Why are you... Well, I've never worried about travelling to the actual dungeons or supplies running out before, so why are you..."

"You must have had a sheltered life," she bit at him and strode away sharply.

Because she was far behind him, she didn't see Blaze come close to tears. "No..." he muttered to her back resentfully, "I haven't had a sheltered life at all." He crossed his hands over his chest. "But I'll show you I'm not soft..."

* * *

The Great Canyon was a relatively uninteresting place; it was just one of the many cracks in the wall of the great plateau. Unfortunately for explorers, it was expansive enough to provide a home for a good deal of dangerous Pokémon, and complicated enough to easily get lost in. The walls of the cave contained many rocks, making it an ideal habitat for the wild Pokémon who relied upon such things for food and shelter – namely, those of the rock and ground type. Civilized Pokémon races in the past had once tried to expand their territories into the canyon, only to get chased out when the local inhabitants violently expressed their disapproval of the disturbance. Eventually, the Mystery Dungeon curse had struck the cave, and ever since then it had been nothing but a dark maze of moderately powerful Pokémon and remnants of the failed digging operations. Its branching corridors extended high into the plateau and fifteen floors towards the surface of the earth. The only way to reach the Hill of the Ancients was to climb up through the Mystery Dungeon, starting at the plain hole dug into the chalk like a rabbit warren.

And somewhere at the top Xatu and some possible answers resided.

When a faint squeaking noise filled the air, the group instinctively halted to survey their surroundings. Not a second later, a fireball and a razor-sharp leaf converged on a poor Skiploom that had been hanging from the ceiling nearby. It dropped to the ground, completely destroyed.

"We can't be wasting all our energy attacking at once. I should be the one leading the way as I'm the best against Rock and ground Pokémon. You, Blaze, can stay behind me as backup."

The group commenced with systematic exploration of the first basement floor. Blaze let Foxglove lead the way but stayed at her back just in case any of the potentially dangerous ferals would show up.

The ceiling, walls, and floor of the Great Canyon were composed of brown rock that somewhat resembled petrified mud. The path through the cave itself was unpredictable and difficult to follow, with a floor that never stayed flat and many sudden corners to turn. While Foxglove had seen her share of caves during her brief time as team leader, she'd frequently find herself surprised at the effect the Mystery Dungeon curse could have on a cave. Some, like the Gravelrock Tunnel, had spacious and easy-to-travel corridors, and others, like the Fossil Pit, were hard to even call "caves" due to their _perfectly_ _flat_ floors and walls, and passageways that appeared to have been meticulously carved out by human hands. Not this time, though—the Great Canyon was very deserving of being called a "canyon", and was quickly proving to be a rough trip.

As the team explored the floor, they started to unwind. Although the place was a little hard to navigate, things were going well. They encountered a few Murkrow, none of which posed any threat whatsoever, and quickly located the room with the staircase. In it, they were met with a new opponent: a Doduo who'd been snacking on a Dunsparce it had killed. A well-aimed Bullet Seed/Ember knocked it senseless before it had the chance to cause any harm.

 _So far, so good,_ Foxglove told herself as she followed Blaze up the stairs.

 **Great Canyon 8F**

As they continued on their search for the Hill of the Ancients, they started to meet with more opposition as they got higher into the crevice. Dunsparce were getting numerous, as were Skiploom. Phanpy continued to be common, and the team met no less than four Breloom along the way. Blaze had defeated it easily with a ember, and the team continued onward without incident.

Soon, the team was fending off enemies left and right, and was getting used to doing so. The Paras would fall easily to a simple Ember attack and the others could be battered into submission.

Soon, though, the team was met with their toughest challenge yet: a Houndoom.

"Oh, God." Foxglove said upon seeing the foe. "I think I'm going to need some help with this one…" She studied the Houndoom as it stood its ground before them. The creature resembled a hellhound, complete with horns and trophies of other Pokémon bones. It was at least three times her own size. Even in comparison to some of the rock Pokémon such as Onix, it was a strange sight to behold.

The Houndoom stared back, waiting for the intruders to make the first move.

"Think you could pull off an Energy Ball?" Blaze suggested.

"That would be like farting in a hurricane." Foxglove answered. "Why don't you try something? Not a fire attack, another one."

Blaze bit his lip. "That's really risky," he said. "I can't knock that thing out in one hit."

Instead of answering, Foxglove withdrew a Sleep Seed from the bag and chucked it at the Houndoom. The beast didn't see it coming. When it struck, a bright white flash illuminated the cave for a split second, and the beast fell onto its back, motionless.

"Problem solved."

"Hmm, are you sure that was a good idea?" Blaze wondered. "We should save those things for when we really need them. We could have at least tried to battle it and learn how they act, right?"

"I suppose that would have been right, but if you fancy fighting that thing at your current level, tell me so I can watch."

"Its fine," Blaze said hurriedly. "We have more of those seeds. It's asleep now, so let's get going…"

The group carefully slipped past the sleeping monster and into the next narrow hallway and were they were immediately faced with a Breloom. It emitted a strange growl at the team which almost sounded like an evil purr, and looked as though it was about to charge at any second.

Blaze, being the most effective fighter against grass Pokémon, rushed forward to initiate the battle. He leapt into the air and belched a wave of heat upon the beast. The Breloom staggered from the strike, taking a few steps backward. Foxglove followed by releasing a stream of seeds, all of which struck the beast's hide at incredible speeds and chipped away at the outer layer of its skin.

The Breloom became _furious._ It roared loudly, barreling forward at Foxglove. Acting quickly, Blaze delivered the best pillar of flames he could muster straight into the Breloom's face, causing it to stop dead in its tracks and blindly swipe at the air.

Not to be outdone, the Breloom formed a mighty fist and slammed it into the ground, sending rocky shards and pebbles flying everywhere and creating a shockwave that could have shaken the entire cave. The earthquake caused by the Mega Punch took both Foxglove and Blaze completely by surprise, sending them off their feet. Foxglove brutally struck the ground, feeling the light tickle of stray gravel falling on her as she moaned and took a moment to rest. When she tried to get back up, she found that she couldn't quite do it at first; the effect had left her too shaken and disoriented, and had also induced a serious headache.

Growling in determination, Blaze once again launched a barrage of embers at the enemy, but the Breloom avoided every single one.

As Blaze stood at the base of the beast and tried to quickly contemplate his next move, a voice rang out from behind him.

"Look out, Blaze!" Foxglove yelled out. "Coming through!"

Blaze obeyed. He jumped to the side, giving Foxglove room to rush toward the beast. Blaze noticed how her tail was glowing brightly with Pound. She leapt and performed a very impressive somersault in midair, striking the fighting monster with her gleaming tail and actually slicing into the beast, leaving a huge crack beside its face. She landed on her feet and quickly surveyed the effect of the attack: it had connected and the beast was wincing.

Roaring like never before, the Breloom pounded the ground again, causing another earthquake and tossing Foxglove into the air. Blaze also lost his balance a second time and tumbled onto his side.

"Ugh! Stop doing that!" Blaze pleaded, curling up on the floor for a moment and holding his throbbing forehead in his claws.

He realised too late that the Breloom was coming straight at him. It had tucked in its arms and legs and started a forward roll. Blaze lashed at the rolling animal with his tail, pressing the flame against its hide, setting it alight. The Breloom howled as it was burned alive, eyes melting and giving off a disturbingly appetising stench of cooked meat and roasted mushrooms. Once it was dead, Foxglove sliced great hunks of its flesh off to eat along the journey. The meat was well-cooked with rich herbs for flavouring.

With a greater resolve than ever before, the team searched even deeper into the dungeon. Afraid for their lives and also for the security of their item bag, they opted to play games of stealth rather than attacking every Pokémon they came across. But with a flaming tail amongst the complete darkness, it wasn't too easy for Blaze to stay hidden, even when he tried to dim the light by holding it in his hands. Twice, the team found themselves having to run away from the more powerful Pokémon to get them off their tail, and it was _always_ a challenge to keep their footing among the gravel and not to get separated in the narrow passageways.

For some reason, the wild Pokémon would never chase them down the stairs to the next floor.

But then they faced a monster house, the first of many in their journey. What made it terrifying was that there were supposed to be no monster houses in the Great Canyon. Wave after wave of Pokémon charged at them, at least fifty screaming ferals of all species, crazed for blood.

WHUMP. Blaze jumped over a Breloom's tail, leapt onto its face and prepared to finish it with a gravelrock between the eyes, but the beast lurched and threw Blaze all the way across the room. He hit the ground hard and skidded across the wet rock floor, stopping when he collided with a large stalagmite near the corner of the room. A _clang_ resounded as his rock hit the floor a few feet away.

As he lay there, he felt strange, like he was falling out of reality. He was blacking out.

' _No, no, no!'_ Blaze said to himself, feeling his senses fading. ' _I'm not finished! I can't fall asleep now. No… no…' Blaze_ knew that his limit was drawing near. The battle that raged on the other side of the room seemed so distant, as if it was in another reality, or a memory. The Charmander could barely feel his own body. He couldn't feel the grit hitting his face, or his tail… He winced wildly, fighting the urge to succumb to weariness…

After a while, Blaze had the horrible realization that he didn't have the slightest idea how long he'd been laying there. _'I need to fight. I need to get up!'_ Blaze told himself.

Taking no time to recover his rock, he pulled himself up and dashed on all fours back to the front line. But when he got there, he found that the wild Pokémon had all settled down. Foxglove was gone.

Pure dread washed Blaze. He didn't waste a moment wondering what happened; he knew. While he was down, his friend had thought he had been expelled from the dungeon and ran to the next floor, leaving Blaze completely alone with the army of enemy Pokémon.

"Cacrr?"

The Cacturne grunted in surprise as it turned to Blaze, noticing that the intruders hadn't been completely eradicated. It scowled and assumed its battle stance once more, and the rest of the Pokémon congregation did the same.

' _This isn't even possible…'_

Blaze gazed upon his enemies. They filled the room, outnumbering him almost fifty-to-one. He was faced with dozens of Murkrow who'd been feasting upon their dead comrades, dozens of Doduo that floor and stared at him, several Vilepulm that stared back with their evil gaze… and, in front of them all, one giant Cacturne that loomed above them all, like some kind of leader or commander. The cactus Pokémon waited and watched the little Charmander for a move that could provoke them…

' _I'm not going to win this battle…'_

Blaze felt sick. He'd never been faced with such overwhelming odds before. He was so little and weak and they were so numerous… And he was so hungry, and tired…

And then, Blaze felt something truly incredible. A sort of euphoria overtook him, igniting his fire and bringing it to a full-bodied blaze. A brilliant white light filled the room as Blaze's flame grew to a marvellous size. Blaze felt all his pain and discomfort fading away. His dizziness and his hunger were all drowned out, leaving him with only the burning feeling.

 _When a Charmander is faced with its final moments_ , his father had told him once in a training session, _it will experience a sort of second wind, giving its fire unprecedented power. When you find that your energy is no more, when there is no longer fuel for your fire, you will start to use your very life force as fuel. It is during this time that you can reach your full potential as a Pokémon, able to overcome impossible challenges and insurmountable task. Once you feel the blaze of your second wind don't hold it back. Let it all out, for it is your last hope of survival._

Blaze couldn't really remember what happened next. He attacked, and it was like a fire spirit was taking over his body and discharging power he could not comprehend. He could dodge nearly every attack that came at him, and retaliated with incredible streams of fire. Every Skiploom that got close to him was burned. Every crow that got too close was singed out of the air. The Cacturne became infuriated as Blaze easily danced around his efforts to attack while spitting red-hot embers into its eyes.

As much as Blaze tried, he couldn't stand his ground. The Pokémon flooded in, pushing him farther and farther back towards the corner. But he kept dodging, and attacking, and dodging some more, not able to count all the Pokémon that fell… but the wave just kept coming.

He hefted the bag onto his shoulder and made a mad dash away from the angry crowd of Pokémon. This movement seemed to puzzle them. Blaze sprinted down the exit, hearing their bellows behind him. Blaze killed them with fire and used their bodies to block the already narrow passageways. They were still very numerous and scattered all around the dungeon floor, but as they were struggling to get over the bodies of their comrades, Blaze found it so easy to avoid them. Now, all he had to do was find the stairs.

And he soon found them. They were at the very, very corner of the entire dungeon floor, in another one-way exit. There were just two little problems.

Circling the entrance to the stairwell, guarding it, was a hellhound more massive than any he'd ever seen before.

It was not a dog. No, instead of having a furry, slightly oily pelt, this one's charcoal-black fur was decorated with bones as grisly trophies. Its mouth was many times bigger and filled with a large row of teeth. It had a pair of horns protruding from its head which curled backwards. It had a bone-ridge across its back and now two circular bones on each ankle. The tail was elongated with a triangular arrow-head tip at the end, and it had a white, circular bone around its neck which held a small skull at its throat – possibly a Ratatta's, judging from the size and shape.

It emerged from the shadows with its eyes burning like small fiery pieces of coal. The tail began to slightly wave back and forth and the orange parts of its body began to glow red, signifying that it was angry.

And when it spotted the tiny little fire-lizard, its evil eyes betrayed its resolve: _You will not get past me!_

Blaze knew he had to defeat it if he wished to get past it. He could see in its eyes that it would not have things any other way. So, with a determined sigh, he tossed the bag aside and turned to the monster.

It was fire. It was supposedly best to fight fire with fire, but he had always thought it best to fight fire with water. He had no chance.

To make matters worse, a great, shaggy bull emerged behind the Charmander, snorting heavily. He could feel the vibrations it made when it pawed the ground.

Blaze focused his fire on the Houndoom's face, deducing that it was the best weak point. The Houndoom responded by sounding a low roar and tensing its muscles, aiming its building-up flamethrower at Blaze's position. Seeing the attack coming, he rolled out of the way, just to have the jet smash the ground beside him, barely missing his feet. Blaze immediately somersaulted out of the charging Tauros' path before it could glance him with a sweeping blow.

Seeing Blaze out of range, but not wanting to back away from the stairs in which it guarded, the Tauros reared its head into the air and roared, releasing a bright beam of light from its mouth. Blaze wondered if it was a Hyper Beam, and took special care not to get hit by it. He came in closer, prompting the Houndoom to cease the attack and to try again with its fire. This time, Blaze released his own ember, which was ruthlessly and instantly swallowed up by the superior jet. Blaze ducked and the beam slammed into the Tauros. Like a giant club, the bull thundered forward, seemingly ignorant of the flamethrower and tried to bludgeon the Charmander's entire body…

But as the Tauros jerked forward, it lowered its head and the fire hit it point blank. The animal screamed in mortal agony and gave Blaze just the opportunity he was waiting for. He leapt onto the wall and scrambled over to a stalactite. He dug his claws in and bit down as hard as he could. The Houndoom slammed a rapid barrage of Dark Pulses into the Charmander's stomach, but Blaze ignored the pain. The spear gave way and impaled the Houndoom clean through the middle. There was an audible snap as its spine broke in two places.

' _Now for the Tauros.'_

Not that there was much to deal with. Its eyeballs had melted in its sockets and it was blundering about blindly... until a Blast Seed blew its head off.

Blaze was thrown off and finally fell back to the floor. The battle was over, but he didn't feel all too well himself. After everything the two guardians had done to him, he felt like one living bruise. But that did not matter.

' _I defeated a Houndoom and a Tauros… with my bare hands…'_

An odd sensation came over him. He felt dizzy and lightheaded, but somehow, it felt… pleasant…

' _I don't believe it… I defeated… a Houndoom_ and _a Tauros… If only Foxglove could have seen that...'_

"Well done, Blaze. Well done." But that voice was not Foxglove's. "Well done," the voice in his head whispered again. "You might not be completely hopeless, filius ignis, terrore flammae..."

* * *

Meanwhile, at the same time Blaze collapsed, time stopped for Foxglove. It was eerie, looking at the frozen Nidoqueen's fist that was poised to crush her. But she was held in place by the same force, trapped inside her head.

"Hello." the voice seemed to immobilise her in place. The Pokémon were frozen like in a picture. "I am not going to beat about the bush, so I will explain this quickly," the cold, high voice explained. "I want to test your friend. All it requires is for you to be out of the way. If he succeeds then I will not terminate his contract. If he fails then he will die." She had the sensation of flying. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the immense fire beast circling around the stairs with its companion waiting to seal the trap. "The rules are simple: he will have to fight his way through my army that I took the liberty to create, and then get past my Houndoom and Tauros guardian to the next floor."

 _That's madness! He'll die!_ Foxglove argued.

"That is precisely the point. However, I think that you have underestimated your friend. Creating a monster house was simple. Feral Pokémon's minds are _so easy_ to manipulate. A child could do it. All one has to do is gather them together with practically no force required, and they have an unstoppable force."

Foxglove stayed silent.

"That's better. Now then, for you to avoid helping him I shall transport you to the next floor the instant time restarts. He will believe that you have abandoned him because you thought that he was defeated, or that you abandoned him to save our own skin. Either one works and I don't particularly care which."

 _He won't believe that!_

The creature chuckled. "Oh, won't he? I believe he will. If not then I shall put that thought in his head. He will believe that it is his own with none the wiser. It should be interesting if you ever meet up in this world... or the next. Shall we?"

And that was how, ten minutes later on the floor above, Foxglove heard the last roars fade out.

"It seems that the Charmander might not be completely hopeless after all." The malignant voice stated. It had forced Foxglove to sit down in a "relaxed" position while they waited.

 _Right. Blaze passed your test. Now, can you please give me back my body?_ Foxglove asked the entity with icy politeness. _I went along with you, so fulfil your side of the bargain._

"As you wish. To show my goodwill, I have decided to give you a little gift... It is from your world and you should know how to use it."

The Treecko caught a flash of metal winking in the dim sunlight. There was a handle made of faded leather, but it was what was inside it that really interested her.

She drew it and turned the object over. It was perfectly straight, deadly sharp and razor-bladed, made for thrusting in close-combat. At first she couldn't give it a name, but then she remembered. What she had in her innocent hands was a very large combat knife. The black hold was faded with age and use; and gentle like a comfortable old pair of slippers. The hold was the same colour as the sheath that she had found it in, slipping in and out like silk. It was a beautiful tool of death.

She didn't know why but she couldn't throw it away. Holding it felt _right,_ like it was an extension of her hand. The hold and the grips were so perfect, as she marvelled at how simply it slid into place.

Then three things happened.

Foxglove whipped the knife into the secret compartment of her bag as she heard Blaze catching up with her.

She felt the creature leave the area as the telepathic link was cut.

"Foxglove-" Whatever Blaze had been about to say, she never knew. At that moment, the dungeon distorted into a dark expanse that stretched for as far as the eye could see, not dissimilar to the Treecko's "dream" that morning. Candles flickered into life, dotted in a perfect circle, creating pinpricks of light in an otherwise endless expanse of darkness.

" _ **Hello,"**_ a deep voice vibrated around the space. She did not have to look far; directly in front of them a purple ball appeared. It quickly dissipated, leaving a golden-eyed ghost. _**"My name is Magnus,"**_ the Mismagius said, dipping his wide brimmed hat in a mocking bow. _**"My master has ordered your deaths – she wants, in her own words, to 'terminate the contracts of all my rival's clients'. Don't take it personal. It's just business."**_ He shrugged non-committedly. " _ **However, I do not know why he ordered me to kill**_ **you** _ **."**_ He fixed his golden eyes of the Treecko. _**"Still, I might satisfy my curiosity first."**_

The Mismagius chanted a few strange words and Blaze screamed. The Charmander was lifted into the air and thrown bodily to the floor. Even when he hit the ground, an ethereal power pressed down on him, crushing his chest. There was an audible snap as something in his chest broke. Blaze screamed high-pitched in agony. Magnus tutted. _**"I was not finished with you yet. Don't you know that it is considered rude to interrupt someone?"**_ A powerful wave of psychic power proceeded to cheerfully shatter what sounded like every single bone inside the Charmander's body. Magnus smiled. _**"A new record for amount of bones broken in sixty seconds."**_

Even in the midst of horror, Foxglove wondered how a Pokémon from this world knew about time and clocks. The other Pokémon had laughed at her suggestion when she had told them.

Magnus floated over to Foxglove. _**"I would very much like to kill you and have it done, but I have sensed something different about you. What makes you so different?"**_ He asked rhetorically _ **"Rather than chatting about it, why don't I just take a look inside your mind and find out for myself?"**_ he said as his eyes flashed blue for an instant. Foxglove shut her eyes and braced for whatever he was about to do to her, but after a few seconds of relatively nothing happening she gained the courage to open her eyes.

As soon as her eyes made contact with his, she knew she fell for his trap. She couldn't move at all, but she could feel him, casually browsing through her memories and the events of the past few days, unable to do anything to stop him. Magnus ignored her efforts and occasionally mumbled to himself when he came across something interesting.

 _ **"My, my, you have some serious issues: major amnesia of the cerebrum, developing murderous tendencies, and countless other problems. I think I might be doing the world a favour by killing a developing psychopath like you,"**_ he said as she felt him leaf through the pages of her mind.

 _ **"Ah. Here it is,"**_ he said wickedly as he found what she was looking for. Foxglove fought one last time to force him from her head, but Magnus merely chuckled.

 _ **"What's so horrible that you can't even trust your own teammate with it?"**_ he asked rhetorically with a telepathic laugh. The demon would find out soon enough.

Foxglove felt her anger rising. _'The only people allowed in my head are me, a Gardevoir and a creepy Pokémon! No one else!'_  
As if something heard her thought, she felt the paralysis of her right arm fade just enough for her to regain control. Not about to waste the opportunity, she quickly produced a sloppily made Pound attack, and brought her energized tail down onto his face.

The psychic screamed in pain as he backed away from the Treecko slightly. With his concentration broken, Foxglove was freed from his psychic paralysis. She tried to run, but her legs wouldn't respond out of sheer exhaustion.

Magnus yelled and immediately grabbed Foxglove with his Psychic and slammed her against the floor, tightening a rope-like tentacle around her neck. He smiled as he squeezed his fist tighter, crushing her windpipe. A stray tendril sliced into her stomach but she didn't feel it.

"I don't think so," a voice taunted him, one that only the Mismagius could hear.

A sudden gust of wind flung dust into the air. She thought she glimpsed movement, but it was only the Mismaguis' shadow shifting against the dusty floor. His shadow moved, lifting its claws and terrible sword-like scythe, black on brown, candles guttering, shivering, something was queer, wrong. Then she remembered that a Mismagius didn't have a scythe on his head or claws like assassins' dagger. The only thing of the Mismagius that moved was his cloth, swirling around him, but the shadow blade...

 _ **"Cold,"**_ said Magnus in a small puzzled voice, a heartbeat before the cloth of his ethereal form parted like a particularly frail rag beneath the shadow of a blade that was not there. Manus screamed, an unholy wail from another world, the scream of a coward facing death. It was like the souls of fighters long gone had merged into one terrifying entity and attacked him.

He had time to make a small thick gasp before the blood came gushing out of his throat. The Mismagius stumbled onto the floor, a sheet of blood creeping down the front of his chest, a dark red tide that drowned his purple and black. More candles guttered out. Magnus tried to speak, but he was choking on his own blood. His form collapsed.

The shadow. Something dark and evil had happened here, she knew, something that she could not begin to understand. Magnus never cast that shadow. Death came in and blew the life out of him as swift as the wind snuffed out his candles. Instead of being relived, Foxglove was horrified. What Pokémon had that sort of power?

Then it struck her. _'Is that blood?'_ She slowly lowered her gaze downwards to her chest. _'That's blood.'_ A long, jagged, gash made it's way across Foxglove's chest like a serpent. ' _That's… blood.'_ Upon closer inspection it seemed to run from her lower ribcage to her stomach, it was deep, and it was leaking a constant waterfall of crimson.

She couldn't remember how she had received it, but that was the least of her worries. Adrenaline could only numb away so much pain and give so much false energy before it failed like everything else in her body. The true pain of being brutally sliced open and the sudden weakness of major blood loss hit her like a Metagross's legs. Shock firmly gripped her body as Foxglove fell face first to the ground, unable to move a muscle.

As her sight began to fade to black, she saw Blaze's eyes well up with tears. He screamed something at her, but she couldn't hear him.

To say Foxglove felt surprised when she opened her eyes again would be a gross understatement. She gingerly looked around, making sure this wasn't some sort of fever dream her brain decided to inflict her with as her body died. If it weren't the fact that everything in the area was still black and white, and that nothing was moving, she would almost say it was real. And the fact that she was looking at her own bleeding body on the ground made her think it was slightly unreal.

Looking over the scene, she saw just what a dire predicament they where in: Blaze, looking as if to be on the verge of death, his uneven ribs definitely broken with one or two piercing a lung, looked to be seconds away from passing into the same realm she now dwelt in as his frozen body was petrified in an ugly grimace of agony.

"It's a sad sight to see, isn't it? Your friend needs your help, but here you are, dead and of no practical use to anyone. How disappointing, but it'd be a lie to say I wasn't anticipating such a poor performance from someone of your species," the cold voice chided as Foxglove looked around the frozen arena for the source of the demoness who haunted her mind.

She didn't have to look far; directly in front of her there was a rip of torn cloth as if some creature had torn a curtain in two, and a darker blackness – as if that was even possible – seemed to cascade from a space directly in front of her. The ink-like substance spread like creeping puddle from a spilled cup. As quickly as it appeared, it dissipated, leaving only a standing, black and white, Pokémon with a deadly scythe on its head in its wake.

The creature turned to face her and flashed a sly smile, "Hello, Foxglove. It's rare that I get the pleasure of conversing directly with one of my pawns, but I'm afraid there is no time for pleasantries," the Absol told Foxglove as she chanted a few strange words, distorting the frozen world around them until it was a completely different place.

From what she could see she and the shadow were standing in the middle of a frozen city market place, far bigger then anything she'd seen in Pokémon Square. The scores of Pokémon around them stopped in place as the shadow trotted around them.

"Do you know why I chose you out of all the Pokémon on this pathetic continent? I'll spare you the process of guessing the wrong answer. It was simply because you had certain desirable qualities that others lacked. It wasn't because you had any special powers, intelligence, or anything remarkable about you at all, because you are, in all aspects of the word, average. Nothing special. But as I flicked through your past life in curiosity, looking at your noteworthy achievements, you persuaded me that – as well as because you somehow arrived in this world that you proved you might be of use to my plan, human," the shadow went on, changing the landscape once again.

"To be perfectly blunt, I found you interesting. Most humans and Pokémon who die just go to hell – they don't become Pokémon in the Continentals, or what you humans would call the Pokémon World." The Absol covered her mouth with a paw, her eyes glinting and alight with malice, "Oh? I'm sorry. Did I say too much?"

Next they'd arrived on top of a ice capped mountain. Time may have been frozen, but Foxglove could still feel the utter coldness of the peak. Her anger was frozen like the ground she trod on.

"I had thought that you could cope without my guidance for a few months but I was clearly wrong. Your performance so far has been decent; make no mistake, my friend. The intrusion was unplanned, but your failing was the outcome I'd foreseen. Believe me, you failed miserably even by my calculations," she revealed as she forced the world to distort and reform again. Suddenly, they were in the middle of a large grass courtyard, with tall stone buildings all around.

The Absol stared at her, her eyes glowing an eerie red. "It is in that context that I have argued with _her_ to preserve your team members and yourself... for now," she vaguely explained. "It seems that I had alerted my enemy to my presence when I conducted my test. So for that I must apologise."

Foxglove shut her eye as the courtyard around them flashed white. Suddenly she was back inside her own body once again. Blaze was still leaning over her, and she still had a bloody gash running across her chest. She couldn't see her "friend" but she could still hear her.

"Don't expect, Foxglove, that I'm going to be playing guardian angel for you again, because the next time an incident befalls you, I'm just going to close the observation and terminate your application of potential usage. I'm sure I could find another pawn if you fail again," the invisible Pokémon warned as another flash blinded her eyes. It felt as if her chest was plunged into an icy bath as a white aura enshrouded it. The wound slowly closed itself together, leaving only a faint white line running across her scales. She could hear the unsettling and disturbing noise of Blaze's bones being knitted together and guessed he was undergoing the same rapid healing process.

"I must go now as many matters still require my attention. I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to be careful. I'd rather not have to perform another direct intervention like this again." She said as she chanted another string of words. Foxglove fell unconscious as soon as they hit her ears.

Just before falling asleep, she heard the demoness whisper the words seductively. "I am... Nightshade."

* * *

When they woke up, the Mystery Dungeon was back and the dark expanse had vanished. But this time they had the sense that they had traversed several floors. They were at the final staircase. It was right in front of them. Above them, Xatu waited.

' _This is it.'_

The Hill of the Ancients was a plain, dusty path doted with equally lifeless, windswept rocks. A dark figure had its back turned to them. Silhouetted against the dying sun that bled orange and pink, it was impossible to tell the species of Pokémon.

"We finally made it to the top." Blaze gasped.

' _About frigging time.'_

Foxglove and Blaze advanced to the motionless figure quiet as a snake.

Milky white eyes stared blindly at the two Pokémon as their owner turned around. Even though Xatu was blind, Foxglove had the sense that Xatu could still see them, which was ridiculous. _A Pokémon thinks that they are silent, but a psychic can hear the scuff of their little mouse feet. They would do better to pick their feet up._ Xatu advised inconsequently. _Witness it,_ he commanded, _the dying of the sun and the death of life. The light always battles against the dark in an endless war..._ He shook off his thoughts. _Welcome, travellers. A psychic sacrificed his sight to see something greater..._ He spread his mottled wings dramatically while speaking. He clearly had a thing for theatrics.

Foxglove folded her arms across her chest and raised a single eyebrow, unimpressed by this theatre of all-knowingness.

Xatu sighed. _Very well. A psychic shall not drone on. A human and her Pokémon shall get to the meaning of this unusual visit._

' _Damn psychics and their mind-reading. Though it was a blunt way to put it.'_

Xatu turned back to the sun as if they didn't exist. _All day a psychic stares into the sun unblinking-_

' _It has caused me to go blind,'_ Foxglove finished.

Xatu paused. _It gives a psychic sight for all things. To see the past, the present... and the future._

Blaze went down on his knees in front of Xatu. "If you know anything, please tell us!" he begged the bird. "This is my friend, Foxglove. She woke up two weeks ago as a Treecko with amnesia-"

Xatu held up a wing to silence him. _A psychic already knows this._

Taking the hint, Blaze asked one question, clasping his hands. "Please tell us."

Xatu was silent for a long time. His eyes gained a distant look. A grimace of something rippled across his features. _The calamities of nature have been many in recent times. They occur because the world's balance is upset._ He turned to Foxglove. _And you becoming a Pokémon is inseparably tied together._

Blaze stammered, "Foxglove becoming a Pokémon and the natural disasters are connected?" Ice began to fill his veins. "What do you mean?! Why are Foxglove and the natural disasters linked?!"

Foxglove chewed her lip to fight back the overwhelming urge to panic.

 _Have you quite finished?_ Xatu coolly asked. _A psychic has bigger concerns. The world's balance must be restored, whatever the cost._ _If not, then this world shall face the unthinkable._

Blaze stuttered, unable to form a coherent sentence.

 _Every day a psychic sees the same future. He searches desperately for another pathway, something that does not eventually lead to the apocalypse. He dreads it,_ he admitted, shuddering.

"X-Xatu," Blaze whimpered.

 _I fear it... The world's destruction. Day after day I see it, coming closer and closer. And I have to watch it!_ He finally broke down.

Unseen, the shadow of a tree gained a pair of crimson red eyes. Things went from bad to worse. "Interesting," Gengar mused, "Foxglove used to be a human, eh?" The eye disappeared and the shadow returned to normal.

 _Ask the one you call Wishcash about the Ninetails Legend. He knows it well._ Xatu ordered.

Within an instant, Foxglove was blinded and felt the ground underneath her wobbling feet once again. Once her vision returned enough for her to see, she was surprised when she found herself and Blaze standing at the door of her base.

* * *

The next morning, Blaze asked after the usual 'good morning', "Actually, I wanted to ask you something. What you think about what Xatu said yesterday?"

Foxglove chewed her lip. "I... It bothers me."

"Yeah... Me too." Blaze mumbled. From his look, Foxglove guessed that he had no sleep either.

"In one day I found out that my turning into a Pokémon and the world's balance is linked... And because of the world's balance being upset, the natural disasters keep occurring. Also, unless the balance is fixed, the Armageddon will come. This information is dangerous in the wrong hands."

Blaze nodded. "I want to do something, but I don't know how to restore the world's balance."

"Well, since neither of us knows what the world's balance is, we can't correct it."

"Yeah... I suppose you're right." Blaze mumbled.

After a few minutes of silence, they made their way to Wishcash's pond to hear the Ninetails Legend like Xatu had ordered.

They raced over to the pond and across the stepping stones. "You want me to tell you of the Ninetails Legend?" The elderly fish enquired.

"Yes please." Foxglove said in an unusual moment of politeness. She and Blaze settled down as they heard the tale.

"There was a Pokémon by the name of Ninetails. Now, Ninetails had nine tails, each one worth an immense amount of money as fur, as well as being endowed with a psychic power. It was said that anyone foolish enough to touch one of these tails would be cursed for a thousand years. But there is always one. This human did more than touch a tail. They grabbed it for a foolish dare. As one might expect, that human was cursed for a thousand years. Now, this curse was that the human could not die until after a thousand years, and when they did they would be sent to a private hell unless they redeemed themselves. This redemption was made almost impossible. However, the human's Gardevoir shielded the human just as the curse was cast, sacrificing itself and being subjected to a worse form of the curse: it was cursed to have no physical form unless it shared another's body, invisible to the corporeal world.

"The reason that the Gardevoir did this was because this human was her "trainer". Apparently humans and Pokémon share strong bonds, at least in the story books. Anyway, I am getting off-topic.

"Taking pity on Gardevoir, Ninetails asked the human, "Do you wish to save Gardevoir?" But the human had fled, abandoning their partner. When this happened, Ninetails was enraged. A thousand-year-old curse was not enough, it decided. It made this prediction, "Because you have done this, you are cursed above all. _You_ shall become a Pokémon, and on that day, the world's balance shall be plunged into irretrievable turmoil. Once that happens, the apocalypse of that world you inhabit shall be imminent."

"What do you think?" Whishcash asked. "Interesting, no? Of course don't take it literally," he laughed, "it is just a story – an ancient folktale. Though some are reading far too much into this, what with all the recent disasters. But that's just a rumour. You really should not believe everything you hear. There is no need to have such serious expressions."

They walked back to the base in silence. Despite it being only the morning, Blaze said, "Foxglove, let's take a day off. I can't work today. I have too much on my mind."

He waited until he was inside the base and the door was closed, when he said, "I'm sorry. I'll get some sleep."

For the first time since forming the team, he slept in the base.

* * *

 _I'm Gardevoir. As you suspected, I am indeed the one from the Ninetails Legend,_ Gardevoir said by way of greeting, _but other than that I'm an okay girl. I'm sorry to see that you're plagued by that monster. I wish I could do something about it, but due to my curse, all I can do is try to prevent it from invading your mind. Don't believe its promises for one minute. If there is anything I can do for you, simply ask._

"Why am I here again?" Foxglove asked, standing up.

 _I wanted to talk to you, and I'm glad_ _to see you're feeling better. The weakness and disorientation should pass soon. Side effects of "dimension hopping", as I like to call it while recovering from injuries. Or something like that anyway._

"Why are you helping me?"

 _I am a Pokémon, and I see it as my duty to help a human. I might be incorporeal but I am still duty bound to protect humans. So I can tell you one thing about your past._

Foxglove shot up and grabbed the psychic by the arm, surprising her. "Tell me."

 _I'm sure there's no need to distress you,_ the psychic said soothingly, changing tack.

Foxglove tightened her grip ever so slightly.

Gardevoir hesitated. _I don't know if you can take this, but my instinct says that you can... you're a strong girl from what I've seen._

"What happened?" Foxglove asked through gritted teeth.

 _You died. It wasn't quick. I'm so sorry._

Foxglove stayed silent for a minute. Let's get one thing straight – Foxglove can be one tough lady. But the loss and the emptiness are, in this moment, overwhelming.

"I've been haunted by a malicious entity and controlled and manipulated I don't know if I'm going insane, if I'm the cause of the coming apocalypse... And now this." She cried silently. Gardevoir put a reassuring hand on her arm.

Without warning, the psychic's form violently flickered and faded, yanked out of the verdant realm.

* * *

"The pawn has been contacted." The Pokémon spoke to herself, her body shrouded in a impenetrable cloak of shadows. "All that is needed now is her confirmation, though it does not matter if she will follow the plan of her own free will... or be forced to follow the plan. I cannot allow mistakes." The Pokémon looked down at the turquoise gear at her feet as if to reassure herself. "If I fail this time I can afford to reset the game and play again... but it becomes harder every time. My enemies are better prepared. She has contacted the client already, forcing me to move sooner than I would have anticipated. I would have liked a few months to sow some seeds and reap the fruits."

 **I hated this chapter and I really struggled to write it. My lack of enthusiasm stems from the fact that this story is now out of my control. I originally had it all planned out – what would happen, how the loose ends would tie up – but now it has gone on its own path, a separate one to what I intended it to, and now nothing of what I originally planned fits in to this alternative story.**

 **I was wondering if anyone would do a profile image for this fic.**

 **See you next time! Keep the reviews coming in, and bye!**


	7. Chapter 7: Outlaw

**Chapter 7: Outlaw**

"Alright. What do you want now?" she demanded to the air of the glittering crystal palace. That damned Absol was watching her from somewhere in the shadows of the marble ruins, waiting to see what she would do next. She clutched her hands into a fist. She was tired of being a pawn to this chessmaster. Despite the all-too-vivid memories of the unnatural powers she'd seen the ghost use on her; she allowed her rage to gain control.

"Where are you? Tell me! I know you're here! There's no use hiding, you cowardly excuse of a Pokémon!" she screamed.

Despite expecting it, the pain was still agonising. A white-hot dagger burrowed its way through her skull. Twisting away protective bone and scorching every nerve ending it could as it pierced its way into her frontal lobe. The energy paid no heed to the being's agony.

"Insolence gains you nothing. You are pathetic," the Absol lectured, "fighting to survive even the most superficial contact with but the tiniest fraction of my mind, a mote of dust struggling against the winds of a hurricane."

"Rot in hell, you-"

A blast of frigid air threw Foxglove to her back on the cold ground, every word striking the girl with such crushing force Foxglove felt as though her very bones would break beneath them at any moment. "I will not brook disobedience. We shall continue this interview at a later date. Now, get out of my sight." Nightshade ordered.

Foxglove opened her eyes, lying on a bedroll beneath a threadbare blanket, early morning sunshine streaming down on her face. Her breathing was punctuated by short and rapid spasms in her chest. She rested her wrists on her knees. Still shaking with fear, Foxglove muttered to herself intelligibly and pushed herself to her feet.

"Foxglove! Blaze!" Caterpie's shrill squeal changed everything. Despite being tormented by horrific visions, Caterpie's innocent, guileless voice dragged her back to reality. "There's something happening at the Square. Gengar is telling everyone something and he's over the moon about it."

Foxglove and Blaze followed him. Anything that made Gengar happy was not a good thing and warranted investigation.

Gengar was in the middle of telling the residents his version of events of what had taken place at the Hill of the Ancients. "And then Xatu confirmed that the legend was true! And if it was not stopped, then the Armageddon is eminent!" he prattled on.

The sane Pokémon, in their haste to stay together for their own survival didn't know what a viper in they had willingly nursed in their bosom: hatred of the unknown, hatred for anything different, anger and suspicion. Gengar beamed and Foxglove kept a straight face, wondering what serpent was hidden in this stirring of the pot of hatred.

Blaze was worried. "He's deliberately winding them up... Why?" Foxglove was shaking, trembling in anger. She spoke swiftly and in a low whisper to her partner: "I think I know where this is going... On my signal, we'll attack _whoever_ makes the first move." The serpent, she thought, was about to be let loose.

Blaze was shocked at the idea of attacking the Pokémon he had been around all his life, the ones who he had grew up with; but he had enough sense to realise that this scene had all the calmness of an erupting volcano. He heard and he shuddered at the hardness in his friend's words.

Gengar was positively radiant with a malicious joy as he wound up the residents of Pokémon Square as tight as a coiled-up spring. The townsfolk were muttering amongst themselves in agitation. "The legend is true..."

The serpent was flickering its tongue now.

Foxglove fitted the puzzle together. "They never liked me." She whispered out loud to herself, in a voice that could be drowned out by the wind. "At best, they tolerated me. We all banded together for survival. But I'm too different. I only have one eye. Arceus knows what would happen if they knew I was a human...

Blaze is an oddity, a fire type with no fire power, but he's almost got it back. Gengar knew that. Now he's playing on their deep prejudice of anyone who is too different, and combine that with the Ninetails Legend... it's dangerous. Gengar must have hated me more than I imagined."

The serpent slithered into the light, small eyes glinting.

Gengar was beaming with unfettered glee as the Pokémon's anger and suspicion made the frigid air simmer.

The snake hissed.

He held up his hand for silence, as he wrestled for their attention as the townsfolk began to ready themselves for a brawl amongst themselves. All it needed was for one Pokémon to light a spark, and the fire would burst out of control and rampage unstoppably. Everything was raw and on show. If the villages realised that Gengar was toying and playing them like a complete angler with a fish on the line they would rip him to pieces with their bare hands as soon as they would their neighbours.

It was a dangerous game to play, but the Shadow Pokémon held a strong hand. His trump card was up his sleeve and was being fingered and gently teased out at this very moment.

"Now, now, my fellow Pokémon! There is a very simple solution to this!"

The inhabitants broke off their conversation and the notes died slowly.

"If this human was killed, then wouldn't the natural disasters stop? After all, this human is the cause of these problems."

' _That is the stupidest insane troll logic I've ever heard. Killing the human won't stop the problems, but I won't be around to see it. If ignorance ever goes to £40 a barrel, I want drilling rights on Gengar's head.'_

"Yes..." Lombre said slowly, tasting the words in his mouth before letting them out. "That would be the case."

And then the Gengar sprung his surprise, and the serpent's mouth opened to show the long curved fangs.

"Isn't that right, Foxglove?" Gengar called out to the Treecko. He knew that she had been there the whole time. He had let Caterpie leave to summon her to the square so she could defend herself – if she even could. But he had ignored her presence to create more effect. By calling her by her name, Gengar had single handedly drawn every eye to her. As one, the villagers turned and fixed their accusing eyes on the Treecko.

Snubbull's jaws grinded and worked together like a furious machine. The slobbering, dangling rolls of fat that made up his jowls quivered with emotion. His voice sounded like rusted metal grated together, the wheels of the car crunching gravel underfoot. "Is this true?" He rumbled like a car motor revving up. "Are you the human from the Ninetails Legend?"

Foxglove's first reaction was to deny it instantly, but she closed her mouth. She didn't know the answer herself. She was haunted by the thought that she was the human from the legend. She couldn't deny it because she herself didn't know what to say. Saying that she needed more time would not satisfy them: they wanted a clear yes or no. Saying yes would be her death. Answering no would be a lie. So she clammed up. She didn't say anything, for nothing would satisfy them.

Gengar shook his head in apparent and perfectly believable sorrow. "By your silence, you have condemned yourself." No one had made him the leader, but at this moment the Pokémon looked to him. They were a mob, but like all mobs they needed a leader. Individually, Pokémon were smart. In a crowd, they were sheep. Pokémon would do things in a group what they would never do on their own. They needed a leader like all sheep. If they didn't have one then they would mill around aimlessly and eventually dissipate. They were a snake without fangs, a snake without venom. But Gengar had given them both their fangs and their venom.

Lombre made the first move and advanced towards Team Wildfire. He spoke hesitantly to Foxglove. "I'm sorry for this... But..." His hand rose upwards as his claws glinted like steel.

Lombre's claws fell down like an axe of judgement and slashed at her throat. When she put her hand to the side of her neck, blood welled between her fingers. But it was superficial, not fatal. Lombre slashed at her again, and she barely managed to dodge the swipe of the clawed hand.

This time Foxglove caught his wrist, grabbing and twisting it viciously. She bent his arm back until she heard a loud crack, and Lombre dropped his knife with a very un-manly screech. She followed up by bending and pointing her knee and bringing up her leg. In one fluid movement she grabbed Lombre and pulled him into her knee kick. Lombre doubled up in extreme pain and staggered, nearly collapsing like a pack of cards. He had been kicked where no man should be kicked, in too much pain to even cry out.

She shoved him away from her roughly in utter disgust, and looked for an exit where there was none. She was surrounded by savage Pokémon. Some had various thorns and spikes, while others just had their claws and fangs. But they were united in their single goal: her death.

Foxglove tried to attack, to defend, anything, but her fingers and limbs had grown stiff and clumsy. When she tried to summon a move, it was like trying to grasp mist or fog. It tumbled and danced just out of reach, and melted away like mist in the morning when she came near. But she could still use her fists.

She dodged to the side as an attack – she never registered what it was, or who the owner was – came at her from the corner of her eye. She achieved this without moving her position and standing on the balls of her feet which were poised to sprint in any direction. The human-turned-Pokémon slowly shifted around the square as fast as a leaf growing, gradually putting the sun behind her back.

She never even noticed the green Kecleon until his claws came down on her shoulder like a morning-star, grinding his venom-steeped claws into her skin like a possessed demon. Merchants always had a few unorthodox tricks up their sleeves, and this one apparently specialised in metallic-tipped blades on the ends of his dipped in potent acid. Probably Arbok acid, judging by the pain she was in as the venom hissed like a thousand serpents, slowly working its way into her blood-stream. The Pokémon's sharp claws cut into her shoulder and she gasped as the fiery pain hit her. Kecleon growled, claws working their way in and Foxglove bit back a scream. She felt like screaming again as his fingers dug deeper into her muscle. Her left shoulder was bleeding pretty badly and felt like it was on fire.

Foxglove snarled in anger and rammed her hand into the vulnerable hollow of his throat. She squeezed his windpipe with her other hand with an iron fist. Kecleon released her as if he had been hit with one hundred thousand volts to the throat instead of a steel fist. His hand flew up to his badly bruised neck as he gasped like a fish out of water for oxygen to force down his mangled and crushed windpipe.

Persian's sneak attack came out of nowhere. Before she knew what was happened Foxglove felt something heavy pin her down onto her stomach. The Treecko looked up to see the cat's purple jewel flash in the sunlight, along with Persian's pearly, sharp, pointed fangs. "I'm going to enjoy this." The bank owner chuckled darkly. Persian's claws swiped across her back, tearing and cutting into her skin over an over again, until her back was criss-crossed with fierce red ribbons. It was like a horrific stew, a mess of exposed flesh, muscle and sinew.

Foxglove gritted her teeth against the burning sensation flaring across her back, and forced her arm to move. Like a bolt of lightning Persian's claw slapped down onto her wrist, pinning it down with an iron grip. "I don't think so." The cat taunted cruelly.

She hissed as the grip tightened and the cat sank her long fangs into the Treecko's already-bleeding shoulder. The lances met together between her flesh with a metallic clink like keys slotting into the lock of a bank. "I'm going to enjoy this." Persian chuckled darkly, her words slightly muffled with the mouthful of meat in-between. She was surprised to see her prey smirk.

"Not really." Foxglove bit out, unable to hide her amusement. "That was my left hand. You really need to learn to tell your left from your right." Before those had words sunk in, Foxglove's right hand had already come up and fired a few Totter and Blinker Seeds at point blank range. That bitch was definitely going to have a headache in the night. If she was unable to sleep, then that would be one foe disabled.

"You think that you're the cat and I'm the canary, eh?" Foxglove shot. "Well eat seeds, you bad kitty!"

Persian screamed in surprise, letting go of her to stumble back shaking her head. Foxglove rapidly scrabbled up to her feet and wasted no time in nailing her in the gut with a well aimed punch. Persian's screams swiftly turned to thunderous bellows as the Seeds took effect. The Blinker Seeds caused Persian to be completely blind and unable to see. The Totter Seeds would make her confused so when she recovered from the effects of the Blinker Seeds, Persian would hopefully either attack herself or the other traitors. The banker spun around and reared to her full height. Her flawless retractable bayonets were at least an inch long as they brutally mauled the petrified villagers like a rampaging lion, roaring in a confused rage.

Then Snubbull stood there before her. He punched Foxglove in the chest. When he pulled his hand away, the silver thorn stayed where he had buried it.

Foxglove collided her head with Snubbull's. Without giving him time to recover and ignoring her own starry daze the Treecko grabbed the dog's skull and wrenched his head close. She sank her fangs into his face, rejoicing in the bittersweet metallic taste of blood. Her teeth sliced into his eyes. If he could, Snubbull would have wept. But a blind Pokémon cannot cry.

Razor bladed leaves slipped slyly through her ribs and were smoothly removed. Foxglove fell to her knees. As she fell, she took the howling Snubbull's face down with her. She found Snubbull's thorn's hilt and wrenched it free. Shifty was among the crowd with shame, guilt and anguish in his eyes. His hands were stained with blood. Pain washed over her. Let's dance. The Spearow... Mangle... Swagnemite... _Caterpie_... If she had got to him sooner... Blaze was screaming something that she couldn't understand. The Treecko attempted to shake her head mutely, but even that small movement was incredibly taxing. Why was he saying something she couldn't hear?

Shifty was moving forwards like an angel of death. When his leaves shredded her left shoulder, she gave a grunt and fell face-first onto the cobbles. She was half off and half on the bridge where the crystal water lapped against the wood.

"We saved your life, and this is this how you repay us? You owe me, Shiftry..." She whispered hoarsely. Crimson trickled down her chin and she spat a blood into the clear water. He threw his hands up like a defeated fencer. Not me, he seemed to say, it was not me, while her blood splattered the cobbles and stained the water red. Shiftry backed away rather hurriedly to make room for the next attacker. She never felt the next set of claws.

A wall of fire leapt up from the ground, billowing acrid smoke and rolling out a tsunami of heat like an unfurling carpet. Team Wildfire, Jumpluff One, Jumpluff Two and Caterpie were on one side, the villagers on the other.

She tried to stand, but she couldn't. To save her life, she could not do it. Foxglove felt Blaze's arms around her, pulling her up. She yielded like a rag doll, too weak to resist. The Charmander bullied her unwillingly forwards, all the way to the base.

Behind the flames there was an explosion of psychic power as Alakazam forced each and every one of the Pokémon still. He could stop their hearts if he desired, and a show of power was what the 'civilisation' would follow. They followed the strong and despised the weak, and now Alakazam could negotiate.

* * *

When it had gotten ugly Blaze had been trying to summon his fire. It was the old familiar feeling of energy and power. Every Fire type could sense it, even those who couldn't use their fire. It was hard to explain, but it was kind of engraved onto their soul, like a flickering physical being inside of them. He had done it. He quashed his elated joy to the back of his mind. He had more important things to deal with.

The fire may have stopped the traitors, but water would douse the protective flames and they would resume the attack. The problem was that this base had never been built to withstand a siege. He had known the only option left to them when Gengar had revealed the Ninetails Legend, but he was in denial. It had "gone to hell after Gengar had stirred things up like wasps to bloody jam pot," as Foxglove would say. The Charmander turned around.

Foxglove...

She looked like she had fought her way out of every inch of the Distortion World. His mother had told him a little bit of basic healing, but he was no doctor. The Treecko's neck and side were bleeding persistently from Lombre's claws and Shiftry's leaves, respectively. Her left cheek had a long gash on it, her back looked like it had been mauled by a lion (in a way it had), and her shoulder was just as bad as her back, but in a more concentrated area. That venom needed a few Pecha Berries. But all of those wounds were superficial, they weren't worrying. The neck wound had only grazed the skin. The one on her side would have, if she was lucky, been blocked by her ribs, but that would need attention quickly. The others would heal with a few scars so long as her back didn't get infected. What worried Blaze was the wound in her chest, a courtesy of Snubbull's silver thorn. Even as he watched, it belched black blood in an arc that splattered the cold pine floor.

Caterpie had followed them clinging like burr. He was the one good egg out of a basketful of bad ones. The bad eggs had looked perfect in every way on the surface, but underneath they were black and filled with maggots down to the very core and stinking with rot.

* * *

"You do seem to be in a pickle." The Absol's voice reverted in her skull. Foxglove groaned. Would she never have any peace? "I could easily arrange for you to be at peace." Foxglove stayed silent, knowing exactly what peace the demoness had in mind.

"Now then, I am going to speak bluntly. I am going to make a deal with you. I should have offered this later, but certain events distracted me. Still, better late than never. The deal is that you will follow my path in exchange for untampered dreams and life except when vital. It is more than fair, and you should be intelligent enough to grasp that you will not receive such a generous offer again."

Foxglove had no choice. "I accept," she sighed in resignation.

The wind suddenly howled, knocking the Treecko off her feet and forcing her to tumble backwards several feet. From within the mist, two all-too-familiar red eyes flashed once before the dense atmosphere dissipated, leaving the standing figure. Looking up at the Pokémon from the ground, she showed her fangs and produced a growl from deep within her throat.

"It was most rude of you to call me all the way out here only to make those primal noises at me," she said with a smirk.

"You're telling me that you're only here because I _asked_ where you were? You expect me to believe you?" Foxglove asked, crossing her arms in disbelief.

"I expect that you will do as I say. You _did_ ask for help," Nightshade reminded her. "But you must believe that this is your own doing and not my own creation. I do not want to be here any more than you do, as my operation is currently in jeopardy and it is of the utmost importance that I return to my dealings as soon as possible."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Foxglove asked. She watched as Nightshade slowly walked until she was only an arm's length away from the Treecko. Foxglove could almost reach out and touch her thin white and black frame, but, seeing how she liked use of her hand, she refrained from doing so.

"Oh, Foxglove, those facts are strictly confidential," she confided intimately. "I wish I could tell you, as it would make my job infinitely easier, but alas, I cannot. Any other questions?"

"Who are you?" she inquired as she watched the creature's eyes flash with amusement.

"Hmm, a good inquiry. I am the watcher and the interceder. I see no reason to tell you my plan, since your mortal mind cannot begin to grasp the complexity of it. However, it does involve stabbing my enemy with a five-pronged fork," the Absol answered, staring Foxglove straight in her eyes. She gulped slightly, and the other Pokémon smirked as she saw the fear.

"What role do I play in all this?" Foxglove asked. "Please, tell me!" she was begging on her knees now. She didn't care, she wanted an answer. She needed it.

"Your questions shall be answered in good time... But not now. There is a remarkable work of literary prose from a civilization long, long ago in another time: 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances'. The realms of life and death are so closely intertwined that it is hard to separate them, as you would know from your own experience. Speaking of which, you might well think that I am the chess master, the playwright who directs the players; but you are hopelessly, unbelievably _stupid_ and _wrong._ I am that player on the stage that hides in the shadows and takes a bow when all is said and done. When the other, flashier players get the immediate spotlight I shall hang back while the others receive applause and recognition that they could never have done without me directing their plan. I am a player like you, only you think that I stand supreme. I don't expect you to believe me.

"We are spiralling to ruin. Just look at the majestic marble pillars that were created a mere thousand years ago, and look at your primitive houses of wood and stone in the present. Even the old gods have been replaced." The Absol tutted at her ranting, drawing back from indiscreetness. Nightshade sighed. "I shall heal your major injury if only to prevent you from keeping me here any longer... Now, I really must be going."

With those final words, the void exploded in a flash of blinding white light that engulfed all. Foxglove felt her skin crawling with the sensation of her skin knitting itself back together. Her eyes were forced open as her vision was met with the dull green cloth that made up the base's ceiling. Spots danced in her vision as her mind tried to process what the Absol had told her.

Blaze was speaking to her. The uncertain flame swayed hypnotically back and forth like an exotic, naked dancer. It was beautiful.

The gashes in her side were bad. Very bad. She swallowed. Blood had formed crusty and black around the edges where more dark crimson blood spewed out and glistened wetly in the dim light. It hurt to speak. It hurt to breathe. The hole in her chest had healed just like the Absol promised.

"Caterpie here can patch you up, but you need to keep pressure on it." Blaze ordered with more than a hint of steel in his voice, while he attempted to keep the wound relatively clean. Foxglove nodded in assent.

Without waiting for doubts to set in, the Charmander nodded to Caterpie. The bug type shot a few thin lines of silk onto the wound, which began to harden almost immediately. Foxglove clenched her teeth but she slapped her hand down on the makeshift bandage and pressed it into the wound to stop the blood loss. She uttered a muffled scream of agony, but Caterpie carried on his relentless bandaging undeterred.

The fire type drew a large silver thorn and cleaned it quickly. He spat out a small Flamethrower to get the metal heated, but not red hot. Now came the hard part. Blaze gently pressed the hot metal onto the wound.

Foxglove clenched her teeth so hard that they were in danger of shattering in pain. She clamped her lips shut with muffled, shrieking screams of agony as the heated rod burned into her. She twisted and writhed like a wild beast as the stink of burning flesh began to rise from the hissing, steaming ribs. Her screams of pain rang through the base, before she passed out from pain. Although she couldn't see it, Blaze applied the burning brand in short bursts and constantly checked the bleeding. He removed the thorn once more and saw that there was no more blood, only charred flesh.

Infection was a real danger here, so the Charmander wiped the blood off the closed wound as best he could. Blaze blew a deep breath and began to feel fatigue set in as his adrenaline rush wore off. Puncture wounds were the best for this operation, since they closed quickly and easily.

The Treecko stirred slowly and groaned. Blaze was tying up the loose ends and bandaging the wounds on her neck, chest, and stomach. When he noticed her moving, he leapt to his feet hurriedly and forcefully prevented her from rising. "No." He said firmly.

Foxglove interrupted him with the same tone. "Blaze, let me up."

"No." He repeated himself once more. "You are not to move too quickly."

Foxglove relented since she was in no mood to argue and assessed her more minor injuries. The cut on her cheek was longer than she initially thought and she had smeared blood down her cheek. She could feel her back burning from her mauling at the claws of Persian as sweat stung the cuts. The green Kecleon had got in a good swipe down her left upper arm at some point. Exactly when, she couldn't remember. It was too foggy. Her ribs still ached from the courtesy of Shiftry's blades.

Shiftry... It hurt to even think about him. Yet it seemed as if he had shown real regret back there. Foxglove sighed, rubbing her temples so they looked like a shrivelled, wrinkled old hazelnut. If she had been in his position then it made perfect sense to simply go with that murderous crowd. _'I suppose that it is better to swing with the wind than in it.'_

Her eye and her very movements were heavy and weighted down with sorrow and guilt.

It didn't help that Blaze had bottled up his emotions until after she had been patched up. "Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell them that it's not you?! Why didn't you say that you're not the human that appear in the Legend of Ninetails?" He screamed at the Treecko in anger.

Her reply was spat out in equal fury. "I didn't say no because I don't know the answer myself!" She shot upright into a sitting position and almost blacked out with the stab of pain that seared from her lower ribs. It took effort to hide the pain and she had to hold onto the already ruined bed as the agony drained from her side. "Saying that I needed more time would not satisfy them! They wanted a clear yes or no. Saying yes would be like signing my own death warrant – I wasn't about to take the rope offered to me and hang myself! I didn't say no because I didn't know if I was guilty or not! And what if it had turned out that I am that human?! What then?!" Then her rage disappeared as quickly as it had sprung up. "Hey, Blaze..."

"What's up?" Blaze spoke softly in concern.

"I want to end the team." she bluntly stated.

Shock ruled Blaze's face. "What?! Why?!" He yelled.

Foxglove's reply was simple. "You saw what they were like out there... And Gengar is their unofficial leader. He hates me for some reason, but I don't know why. He wants me dead, Blaze, and he will kill whoever is in his way to accomplish his goal. If he has his way (which I'm sure he will), Gengar will get a price on my head and get the villagers and other rescue teams to do the dirty work for him. I will be a fugitive, and you will be one too if you stick by me. So I need to leave to stop others from getting hurt. And besides, there is a good chance that I am that human in the legend. It's best for you not to associate yourself with me."

"Foxglove! This isn't like you at all! When Mangle and Swagnemite died you carried on! You didn't give up like this!" Blaze gasped in worry.

"I had a dream. Several of them. Only they're not dreams at all, they're more like riddles. Most of the time a Gardevoir appears and is..." she paused. "Reassuring and sympathetic, like a... angel."

Blaze gave a small hiss. "A Pokémon named Gardevoir spoke to you in your dreams? Are you sure that it's the same one from the Legend?" Her expression gave him his answer. Blaze then realised what was troubling his partner. "...And now you think that you're that human from the legend because of it..." His rage suddenly spiked once more. "Hey, Foxglove! So what makes you think that you're that human? That doesn't mean that you remember what you were like as a human, does it?!" He thrust his face next to hers. "You don't know what actually happened due to your amnesia! Even if you were, you're not like that now!" Blaze clamped his hands on Foxglove's shoulders, and firmly pronounced every word so there could be no mistake. "Whatever happens, you've always got me. _Always._ Even to the end of time and space."

"I believe in you, Foxglove." Caterpie whispered underneath their feet.

At those words, the Treecko smiled softly and uttered a simple "Thanks." She slowly rose to her feet and winced. She silenced Blaze's protests with a menacing glare that said, _I'm not at death's door yet_.

"You can't be the human from the legend." Caterpie continued more strongly. "That was a thousand years ago. And you don't look _that_ old."

Foxglove smiled. She still had support from a few. Her, Blaze and Caterpie stepped outside into the beaming sunlight... straight into an approaching Team Act. When they saw the Treecko, their movements became more purposeful, firmer and quicker.

 _Foxglove._ Alakazam spoke. That single word had the coldness to create an iceberg. It told her that the villagers had made their decision.

 _You are now an outlaw, Foxglove, along with anyone who chooses to associate themselves with you._ There were words that could have been used to soften the blow, but bad news was given just like that: blunt and emotionless. _Team Wildfire is officially disbanded and Gengar will move into the base formerly owned by your team._ Alakazam continued. _You have until dawn to leave. After that we will hunt you in full force, make no mistake about that._ Team ACT seemed to be satisfied with delivering the final nail in the coffin and they left briskly and did no look back, the set lines of their mouths grim as if they were walking away from the hanging tree. In their eyes Foxglove was already a corpse. Alakazam was her enemy now, but he had held the villagers back from descending on the base and lynching her while she was incapable of protecting herself.

"Blaze..." Foxglove started from somewhere behind him after a long silence.

There was something in that tone of voice that alerted him. That desperate, soft pleading tone. The Charmander covered his ears in an attempt to block out the harsh truth of what was coming. "No..." He protested, not wanting to hear the painful truth that was Death. He would rather be served the beautiful lie known as Life.

"Blaze..." She repeated again, more firmly.

"No... I don't want to..." He repeated, as if saying it would somehow fend off the truth.

"Blaze," Nothing would hold Foxglove back from saying what needed to be said. Blaze recognised that hard look in her eye. It was the same one she used when she killed the Spearow. It was the look she always used before she delivered the deathblow, so quick that the victim never knew what had happened. He instinctively raised his hand to block her words but she caught it and on tightly. Her scarred, bandaged hands flew to his face and traced his features gently, like a falling feather.

"Don't," He whispered, tears running like a torrential waterfall down his cheeks, erupting into steam due to exposure to the heat that radiated from his body. He silently pleaded to his partner to lie to him for once in her blunt, brutally honest life.

But Foxglove was not one to tell a beautiful lie. She always told the painful truth. "We need to leave."

* * *

A shadow, a quiet ghost, slipped into the sleeping Pokémon Square. The inhabitants were dead to the world, locked in a coma for now. It was the perfect night for thieves and outlaws. The moon was covered and the Square was in total darkness.

The scaled shadow whispered into the bank, creeping past the fat, pampered cat. She deposited most of her money with no illusions over what would happen to it. It would be shared among the population, but she wouldn't need cash were she was going.

The next stop was to Kangaskhan Storage. The Pokémon grabbed as much of her stuff as she could carry: blast seeds, totter seeds, apples, gummis, berries...

She left as quietly as she came.

* * *

Blaze was tainted by memories. _The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted hinge. Charizard had come again._ He blinked the memories of his childhood away as Foxglove returned.

"I used to be afraid to dream, but I'm not anymore." She said suddenly.

"Why?" Blaze asked, not knowing if he would like the answer.

"Because no matter how bad the dreams get... when I wake up it's always worse." Foxglove quietly whispered to him.

Foxglove took one last look at her base. It had not been much but it had been the only home she remembered. Gengar had taken over Pokémon Square, and now he had taken over her base. It took a moment to realise that she was shaking with anger. "Blaze..." she choked out "There is one more thing I need to do."

"Don't do anything rash!" The Charmander called out after his partner, knowing her temper. But his warning went ignored.

The Treecko came back shortly afterwards, dragging a squirming Ekans with her. She unceremoniously dumped the snake onto the ground. Ekans was a mess. His purple scales had been forcefully ripped out and the unprotected flesh was bare and delicate. His body was festooned with violent multi-coloured bruises, while his bottom jaw was dislocated and hung limply, separate from the rest of his head. In contrast Foxglove sported a minor cut over her left eye. Ekans tried to escape but the Treecko stamped down on the uncoiling serpent's neck, ignoring his petrified hissing.

Foxglove hauled Ekans inside the base, into the dark interior. Ekans opened his mouth to say something when a closed fist brutally crunched into his face. His world instantly went black. His attacker looked at her victim coldly, without emotion. He wasn't worth getting a price on her head for murder.

She wanted to send Gengar a message, one that would be the first thing he saw when he walked into her base. And what better way to do it than in his own teammate's blood?

She drew her knife. It had been hiding in a side compartment in her bag the whole time. She placed her hand against Ekans' neck, getting some blood on her fingers. After doing so, she stood up and began to write with it on the ancient tree stump inside the base's "yard".

It took her a little while, but she finally managed to write what she wanted. In blood, the words **You should have killed me when you had the chance. I never forget** was written on the rock. Even as she looked, the blood slowly trickled down the bark that was just as cold as her heart. That was a promise, a solemn made vow written in blood on the stump. Gengar would look at it every time he went into the base and he would shudder at those cold words that told him that this base was _Foxglove's_ base, not his and it never would be no matter how many times he justified it.

Foxglove cleaned the blood off her knife on the straw bed before sheathing it, then promptly left the base just as silent as she had been when she arrived, being as quiet as a ghost. Blaze, in his curiosity entered the base to see what Foxglove had done. He walked out rather quickly with a complexion that was slightly on the pale side.

"What are we going to do now? What are we going to do?!" Blaze panicked.  
"Maybe we could build a fire, sing a couple of songs, huh? Why don't we try that?" Foxglove spoke, her voice sagging with sarcasm. It then became harsh. "I intend to survive. I don't intend to die like a rat. Now, you agreed to stay with me and become an outlaw because of it." She suddenly swung her body around to face Blaze and stabbed a finger in his face. "So don't you _dare_ think of returning."

"I wasn't-"

"Oh, cut the crap." she hissed, making a threatening step towards him. "Want to go back? Want to go back to _civilisation_?" she barked out a crack of laughter at the word, laying the emphasis on thick. "Newsflash!" she barked, making Blaze jump. "You're an outlaw like me and going back will be signing a death warrant unless you return with my corpse. That is the only thing that will save you from immediate execution by the mob, but you will be quietly killed in your sleep – perhaps that very night – by a few hot-heads.

"So go on, then! Go back and die. Or stick with me and live. Which will it be?" Foxglove folded her arms over her chest and waited.

"You could take another name." Blaze suggested.

"Another name? Oh, certainly. And when the bounty hunters come to kill me, I'll say, 'No, you have the wrong woman, I'm a _different_ one-eyed Treecko with a hideous eye-scar.'" Blaze laughed, before seeing the glint of her badge.

"Is that your badge?" Blaze inquired.

Slightly taken by surprise at the randomness of the question, Foxglove reflexively opened her palm to reveal the badge fully.

"Great, now hand it over. It has to go," Blaze demanded, holding out his right hand.  
"Why? Why does it have to go?" Foxglove clutched her badge as Blaze let out an exasperated sigh.

"Because _they_ can track you through it!" Blaze yelled, pointing vaguely in the direction of the police station, "Believe me, I know what they do. I've experienced it first hand," he said, his voice lowering so his teammate could barely hear him.

"Fine, just get it over with... Wait, you've been through this before?" Foxglove asked, as curiosity rose up inside of her. _'What else has he been through?'_

"It's nothing. Just... just give me your badge, please. We don't have much time," Blaze responded, trying to evade the subject.

Foxglove bit her tongue and she tossed the emblem over to the Charmander.

Blaze silently nodded as he picked up both of the trinkets as well as a small rock he could hold easily in his other hand. Foxglove watched curiously as Blaze took his own badge and placed it on an ancient stump. Taking the stone, Blaze slammed it down onto the back where her hand print was etched into the reflective bronze metal. The metal made a resilient clinking noise with every impact. After several hits with the rock, the metal let out a sudden blue spark, contrasting sharply with the moonlit clearing.

Wiping his arm across his forehead, Blaze examined the damaged item. Nodding quietly to himself, he tossed the identification piece over his shoulder and into the forest where it was quickly swallowed up by the shifting trees.

"One down, one to go," Foxglove heard her teammate whisper as she watched Blaze grab her badge and repeat the same process. Hit. Clink. Another hit. Another metallic clink until the badge fizzled and sparked. Her badge lasted ten hits with the nearly broken wedge of stone before sparking. Having rendered it inoperable, Blaze tossed the broken piece of metal behind him.

From now on it would be a harsh life on the road, always one step ahead of the lynch mobs. There would be no roofs over their heads. They would be sleeping rough, stealing food from villages whenever they could but they would mainly scavenge off the land like wild Pokémon. It may not be pampered but she would be freer than she had ever been before.

There was a freedom in chaos. That is why if one puts the entire world's demons, sorrow and hate behind a door and tells people not to open it, one will just to see that chaos unleashed.

Team ACT and anyone who wanted to make a name for him would come after them.

As they thought about their pursuers and thousands yelled for their blood, all Blaze could hear was the scream of a rusting hinge.

 **I decided to make that scene where the player is attacked by Lombre into something more drawn out. Lombre attacks you and that's it in the game, so I decided to make it more of a proper fight scene with almost all of the Pokémon in Pokémon Square involved.**

 **I also decided to incorporate a reason why the villagers don't follow you. If you think about it, the player and partner run across the bridge to the base, but the Pokémon don't follow them. That didn't sit well with me since the only thing between Pokémon Square and the base is that bridge.**


	8. Chapter Eight: Hunted, Part 1

**I would like to apologise about the long wait for this horribly overdue chapter. Sorry everyone, for disappearing and failing to update in a good time. Writer's block got me good for this one – no amount of excuses can change it.**

 **I hope you like this chapter, and I hope you guys will send a review with what you think. Whether you liked it or not. I'm open for both, really, as criticism always helps me improve.**

 **Warning. This chapter takes a dark twist. You have been warned.**

 **Chapter Eight: Hunted, Part 1**

Foxglove had thought that Pokémon Square was bad. The streets were extended gutters and the gutters were full of blood. But when they left the Square, Foxglove saw the impact of a country ravaged by war that was slowly recovering, even three months afterwards. The recent natural disasters had knocked it into regression once more.

Fields and houses that were not destroyed by tidal waves, wildfires that raged unchecked for days, hurricanes that looked like they had been summoned by Lugia himself, howling blizzards that sliced into the face of those who stepped outside, fissures in the earth that still yawned open, leaving great, ugly scars in the soil, or rain that was pure, concentrated acid as if the gods themselves rained down their wrath on the world to make the soil barren for years to come; had been destroyed by marauding bands of outlaws and refugees that stole whatever they could and destroyed whatever they couldn't steal.

Those few civilians who dared come to the police for justice found none. The Magnemite beat the hell out of those they suspected for no reason at all. Or if they did have a reason, it was the reason that governed so many of their actions: nothing but their own spite. All they saw when they looked at their victims was another little rat.

They lived in a terrible place and time. Everything that was not you wanted to kill you. Outlaws, angry drunks, scorned hookers, hungry animals, diseases, major injuries, minor injuries, the weather...

"Foxglove?"

Blaze's voice made her realise that she had been mumbling out loud. Was she that tired? "It's nothing." She shook her head. "Let's go."

* * *

Lapis Cave was beautiful. Words could not do it justice. Crystals of every shape, size and colour were decked out in the dungeon. The walls themselves were carved from deep Egyptian blue rock, bathing the inhabitants in blue light. The walls contained layer upon layer of rocks and the smooth lines flowed effortlessly, one over the other. Small grey pebbles dotted the landscape here and there and a glimmering green river wound throughout the first floor.

But this peaceful landscape was disrupted by danger. Their pursuers' feet slapped the ground behind them as the two outlaws turned a corner and raced into the next room. They skidded to an abrupt halt to see a massive spider's web hanging from the ceiling like a malevolent spirit.

All sound of the pursuit had faded. It was quiet. Too quiet. When they had entered Lapis Cave their enemies had been right on their heels the whole time. Whenever they had tried to go down another path, the flickers of claws and the whispering venomous hisses had turned them back. They had been herded like Mareep to the knackers' yard. The Treecko looked at the silent web, and then the only way in... And out.

"Those bastards..." She cursed.

They had tricked her. She slammed her fist against the wall and immediately regretted it as it stung like hell. She should have known this, but she had been panicking and not thinking straight. What she should have done was force their way out of such an obvious trap.

Her realisation had come too late. Her voice was perched on the edge of warning Blaze when she heard his cry. When the Treecko turned around there was only a cracked Warp Orb right in the spot her partner had been. Someone had thrown it and teleported Blaze to get him out of the way. He could be anywhere in the dungeon by now.

Whoever did this only wanted her dead. Her and no-one else. Blaze was nothing to her enemies. They did this to remove Blaze from the scene and make it easier to kill her. Foxglove's eye raked the surroundings as her pressurised senses screamed.

The attack came from out of nowhere.

A thick ball of gloop slammed into her legs and tripped her up. Another one skimmed onto her undefended back. It was silk. By now the netting had started to split into many different pieces. Many of the strings brushing against her body had joined into single lines that pinned her in place. "I'm so screwed." She hissed, just before several strands of fine, gossamer silk like fairy wings, almost transparent, pinned her arms to her body.

Her hand slapped to her side as she tried to free her body from the silk that enmeshed her hand in place.

She felt something light across her back. A thin line of string-like web had fallen across her shoulder. She felt more string settling across her back like feathers. She was now immobile.

Foxglove struggled against the glue that now held her firmly in place to no avail. The stuff dried and became a little more brittle.

Malicious cackles echoed through the cavernous room. Out of the corner of her eye, rotating her head as far as she could, Foxglove could see a Donophan, Kirlia and an Ariados. The third Pokémon formed another ball of white string and launched it at her. The ball unfurled like a banner and curled around her body like an Arbok wrapping its body around a Deerling.

"Let me deal with her," the Ariados pleaded.

The Donophan smiled at her, promising pain. "If I were you, I would kill myself. Rain is one twisted, sick individual and he can get violent sometimes."

She was trapped in netting. The more she tried to free herself, the more entangled she became. _'Where the hell is that Charmander when you need him?'_

* * *

There was a flash of light and Blaze was warped to a random place in the dungeon. He was alone, and Foxglove had been led into a trap like a lamb to the slaughter. Alone, Blaze could only think, thoughts crowding into his head while he ran.

He had been a Charmander with no fire, striving to prove himself to his disappointed family.

' _That Charmander is dead.'_ Blaze had been reborn when he had met Foxglove. The darkness could not frighten him, no more than heights could... nor memories, the bones of the soul. _The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted hinge. Charmeleon has come again._ It did not matter. He was the second in command of Team Wildfire. He had faced Zapdos and Gengar. He was an outlaw now.

Victini must have loved him for once, for voices that could only be identified as their pursuers were only a few feet away. The Charmander flattened his body to the ground and thanked Arceus for possibly the first time in his life that his tail wasn't on fire.

"Why didn't we just kill her?" a female's questioning voice drifted closer with their footsteps. "We're murderous scum, are we not?" A Kirlia appeared around the corner in mid-conversation with a Donophan a few steps behind her.

"Yes," the Donophan allowed. "But Rain needs to be let off his leash for a while... unless you want him going after you, Sol?" He phased it as a question, watching as the Kirlia, or Sol, as Blaze had heard her addressed as, flinched at her partner's threat. "I'm the only one who Rain listens to, but he'd kill me if he thought I was weak."

Blaze balled his hands into fists in rage. "You sons of bitches..." he hissed visibly shaking with pure fury. He couldn't take any more of it. With a blood-curdling yell he exploded from the ground.

Sol gasped in horror, "There's the other one, the Charmander!"

"What did you do with my partner?" Blaze snarled venomously.

The Donophan cracked his neck casually. "Rain has her now, outlaw." he told him cockily. "I'm sure he's having all kinds of fun with her by now. I know I would."

Blaze darted forward towards the enemy Pokémon, aiming for the Ground type's eyes. He viciously slashed his claws across the enemy's face, who let out a cry of pain as he tore a gaping rip in the Donophan's head.

"Pete!" Sol screamed.

Pete let out a howl of pain as Blaze followed up the attack with a swift uppercut to the chunky jaw. While Blaze was busily mauling the Donophan and not even giving it a chance to fight back, Sol tried to use a Psychic.

A key word: tried.

Blaze had originally been wary of her, but it he soon realised that Pete and Rain were the muscle while Sol stuck to messing up her enemies' minds. It was obvious that she never had any real battling experience, so what came out was a pathetically weak attack that even a Bug type would laugh at. A weak, washed-out and bleached blue outlined the Charmander's form, but it had absolutely no effect. The Charmander raised his arm up to perform a karate chop with a strength that even Blaze didn't know he possessed and sharply chopped down on the Donophan's head. The enemy's knees gave way and he hurtled down to the floor.

Blaze then turned his murderous attention to the Kirlia. "Call that a Psychic?" he sneered "I've seen a five-year-old toss a stick into the air and call it a Psychic, and even that was a better Psychic than your pathetic attempt. You are just sorry excuses for bounty hunters! I've seen and fought proper threats, and you lot are worse than a Magikarp!" The Kirlia quailed under his ever-heaping pile of scorn. The fire within him still burned bright.

They both were frozen in fear as Blaze fearlessly approached the Kirlia. He grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her down to her knees, ignoring her high pitched squeaks of fright. The Pokémon let out a cry of pain with her wrist nearly being ripped out of her socket with brutal force. Her "friend" back peddled, only to drop down to his stomach when Blaze shot him a dark glare. It made the retreating Pokémon freeze in terror.

"Who are you and what did you do to my friend?!" Blaze yelled in the Kirlia's face, who's wrist was about to be yanked from her socket like a root from the ground. She panicked like a rabbit caught in a trap.

"Anyone who knows about you wants your friend dead! The Legend of Ninetails... Gengar told us to... we are hired for... for... jobs like this..." Blaze punched her in the stomach, cutting off her petrified torrent.

"Damn Ninetails and damn Gengar! Who died and made him dictator? You tell me what you did with my partner!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Blaze saw the other bounty hunter trying to slip out via the nearest sprawling passageway. "I'd advice against that if you don't want to be burned alive." Blaze said coldly without even looking over at him. The Donophan stopped in mid step, glanced around nervously, and made a break for it.

He might be many things, but Blaze was true to his word. The Charmander opened his mouth and a tornado of sweltering flames crashed into the Pokémon like a train wreck. The Donophan keeled over in unconsciousness, angry boils that wept pus erupting over his entire body. A moment later and his body was engulfed in a relentless explosion of fire that blackened the grey skin to charcoal, revealing his bones and bleaching them white in large patches. The skin around the edges of these wounds was exits for the rolls of fat that ran down his hide. The Donophan did not move when the fire had been extinguished.

Blaze dragged the weeping Kirlia he still was holding by the wrist over to the centre of the area with an anger that was rarely seen in Fire types, but was always there. Flames burst into life around his feet and hands. He smashed the girl's head down into the solid rock wall and blood spattered the floor.

"Where is she?!" Blaze yelled, still pulling her by her wrist. The Kirlia was delirious from the blow, so she didn't answer. A particularly large crystal being slowly grinded into her face might have also made her unable to talk.

Blaze bared his teeth at the silence. An orange flame burst into life in each of the palms of his hands. White tipped tongues of red fire ignited around his feet, and the licked his heels. He created a roaring pyre of flame ten feet high and maintained it with a constant jet of sweating heat. Even at the other end of the room the heat would make a Fire type sweat. He pulled the Kirlia over to the flames and leaned her close to the heat. "The great thing about fires is that they don't take very long to heat up." Blaze told the Kirlia conversationally with the trapped Pokémon who stared into the heart of the pyre with horrified transfixion. "Tell me what you did with Foxglove or you're going to get an inkling of how I'm feeling right now." he hissed venomously.

Blaze leaned her closer to the fire with the heat making the Kirlia sweat freely. "She-She's just down that tunnel! Second to the right!" she said on the verge of tears.

Blaze threw the Kirlia to the ground in disgust and growled. "Return and I will kill you." he told her coldly. The Kirlia would have preferred it if he had yelled at her or tried to rip her head off. Anything but the look in those eyes. They looked like a storm at sea, raging uncontrollably. "Try and resume the hunt, and I will kill you. If I or my partner ever sees you again–"

"–You'll kill me?" She guessed.

"Good to see we understand each other. Now take your friend – whatever's left of him – and get the hell out of Lapis Cave."

With that Blaze spun on his heel and raced away. His thudding feet thumped the ground as he kept his eyes on the path ahead of him with his ears pricked frantically for noise.

Hopefully he wasn't too late.

' _Just hold on, Foxglove. I'm coming.'_

* * *

Foxglove struggled vainly as Rain ambled over to her, drawing out the moment. "Yes, yes. Struggle all you want. You can't escape."

Her response was to spit in a grimy seed in his face. To her surprise the Ariados laughed as the revolting, nauseous stench dripped onto the floor. "So you're going to fight? That's good. I like a woman with spirit." He leered. "Now then, if there's one thing I pride myself on, its pain. I know everything about inflicting it and utilising it to its highest potential." Rain said with a menacing grin. "Gengar's in charge now and he's hardly going to care about this."

Foxglove caught the familiar smell of burning. The Aridos did to, for he muttered and leaned in closer to Foxglove. "Looks like I've got to do this quick."

He shoved Foxglove against a wall. She struggled, but couldn't move. She tried to scream out for help, but she couldn't. "Can't scream eh?" The Ariados whispered. "Don't worry. I'll make _certain_ you do."

"Get off me, you filthy bastard," Foxglove yelled, spitting into his face. She tried desperately to get a grip on the floor with her heels in an attempt to force herself away from him, but the webbing was too thick.

Fire slashed with black smoke swept across Rain's body. A demonic figure emerged out of the haze, balls of flames hovering in his tight fists. Blaze advanced slowly, his tail-flame white hot.

"So you came!" Rain cackled. "You're lucky to have this one as a partner. Go on now; you ought to share your goods!"

Blaze was snarling. His eyes were dark and flames burst into life around him. His claws seemed to have been elongated into butchers' knives. Foxglove had never seen him so angry. "Get your. Lecherous things. Off her. _Now."_ He growled.

"Or what?" The Ariados jeered insolently. "I'm hardly likely to simply hand over this nice little beauty, I–" he never finished his sentence as a knife was shoved into his thorax, twisted and yanked out again. Rain didn't have time to scream when the fiery vortex engulfed him, melting his body. His pain was over when the knife was brutally rammed into his right eye and pierced his brain. Blood spurted out of the broken socket as his body writhed and thrashed and then lay still.

Foxglove removed her knife, cleaned it and looked at her hands. They were stained with blood. Her mouth was bruised and a thin stream of blood trickled down her face from her forehead.

"I'm fine, Blaze." Foxglove snapped, halting the onrush of petrified questions which she really didn't feel like answering. "He didn't... He tried to..."

The dungeon passed in a blurred haze.

* * *

Once the pool had calmed, Foxglove gazed into the waters at the edge. A typical Treecko's face looked back at her. Golden eye. Reptilian body. Smooth and shiny scales like small razor blades.

' _This is me, now. It might not be what I wanted, but it is who I am. Now that I'm more familiar with this Pokémon body, mind, and lifestyle, I can't say I'm displeased with my predicament. But enough thinking,'_ she thought as she got up and walked alongside Blaze. _'There is no time for philosophical musing.'_

Foxglove and Blaze travelled through the Grass Province, skirting the villages and towns, stealing supplies when they could. According to a book she had read, the Grass Provenience had been a neutral state in the Great Type War. Not that it had stopped the Mist Continent from bombing it to the ground with flyers and Hyper Beams. But a stubborn few had held out in the town of Grass Whistle. The villagers had turned the place into an impenetrable fortress. As it was already mounted on a steep hill, the added pickets, sharpened stakes and long-ranged attacks had succeeded in beating the attackers back even though they were vastly outnumbered by three times their number. But no matter how high the walls were, or how perilous the ground was, the enemy flyers had just flown over the walls and burned it. They only surrendered when the Mist Continentals had threatened the children with itemiser orbs... But once the town had surrendered, the enemy dropped itemiser orbs on the children anyway, and thoroughly sacked the village.

Well, they had rebuilt it now.

The gates of Grass Whistle were closed and barred. Through the predawn gloom the town walls shimmered palely. On their ramparts, wisps of fog moved like ghostly sentinels. A dozen wagons and carts had drawn up outside the gates, waiting for the sun to rise. Blaze took his place behind some turnips. Before long another wagon came rumbling from the woods. By the time the sky began to lighten, the queue stretched back a quarter mile.

The folk gave him curious glances, but no one spoke to him. _'It is for me to talk to them,'_ Blaze told himself, but she had always found it hard to speak with strangers. He had always been shy. Long years of scorn had only made him shyer.

He had wanted to ban Foxglove from going into the town. It was almost a certainly that she would be recognised, Blaze had protested, but that look in the Treecko's eye and that jut in her jaw told him that she would not allow him to go into enemy territory alone.

 _Enemy territory._ Once, the Charmander would have seen it as friendly territory. Rescue teams could expect a roof over their heads and some food... But outlaws could not dare to dream of the luxuries that Blaze had once taken for granted.

They were on the run now. Blaze had been on the run for a long time. He had run before Charmeleon as if he were still the weak thing he had been...

But now, Charizard took no notice of him... Except when he had met Team ACT on the road after dragging Shiftry to Pokémon Square. The look in Charizard's eye was... ' _No. Don't think about that.'_

' _I was reborn in Tiny Woods, a harder Pokémon and stronger.'_ No feral Pokémon could frighten him, no more than the darkness could, or the bones of his soul, the grey and grisly bones of his soul. _The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge._

Charizard was wildly unpredictable, and he was also clever, monstrous, and had seen the world. However, the dragon descent could hide his true nature under a veil of eagerness to do good in a terrible world. Charizard had presented a ruthless front to the world, but was not sadistic or psychotic. At least, that was what the sane Pokémon saw because that was what they wanted to see. That was why everyone, even his own teammates, saw him as a non-threat.

As dawn broke, guardsmen appeared on the parapets. The farmers climbed onto their wagons. Blaze took a glance behind him. Most of the queue waiting to enter Grass Whistle were farm folk with loads of fruits and vegetables to sell. A pair of wealthy townsmen held their heads high a dozen places behind him.

The gatehouse opened on a market square, where those who had entered before him were unloading to hawk their turnips, onions, and sacks of berries. Others were selling weapons and armour, and very cheaply to judge from the prices they shouted out as he walked by. Blaze walked past mail shirts still caked with brown blood, dinted helms, notched iron thorns. _'High or low, feral or sane, the Murkrow care not.'_

Foxglove fell into step beside him, having entered the queue far away from Blaze.

The waving colourful banners attached to the hung limply, occasionally fluttering in the weak morning breeze.  
The tarp covered shops were still for the most part quiet, except for a select few.  
There were only five or so other Pokémon that milled around the deserted marketplace – looking for early deals or more often than not, information that only a select few can give at this time of morning.  
One of the few shops that happened to be operating at this early hour was a small lantern lit stand tucked into the side of the street among the other currently closed stands.  
Blaze motioned for Foxglove to follow him as he approached the stand. The small wooden sign on it read simply: _"Alex's Wares"_  
On the wooden table were the usual assortment of apples, berries, orbs and seeds. But the most interesting merchandise were several small glass containers filled with some sort of viscous liquid and fragments of coloured crystals that seemed to change their colouring every time Foxglove blinked.

Surrounding the stall were several mounds of earth. Foxglove lightly touched the nearest pile of earth with the tip of her finger. As soon as the few grains of soil moved, a small rumbling sounded from behind the counter.  
Foxglove leaned forward to get a closer look at the miniature earthquake, but she immediately jumped back out of shock when a small purple blur shot up from the ground with a fountain of displaced pebbles and soil.  
The little purple goblin creature turned to look at them with its eyes, which, much to Foxglove's mixture of fascination and repulsion, were a pair of cut diamonds.

"Ahhh, good morning! What can I do for you this fine dawn?" the shopkeeper wheezed.

"We just wanted to buy some things, you know," Blaze mumbled.

The shopkeeper nodded slowly as if he had fitted a piece of a puzzle. "It's no wonder they call outlaws "Lycanrocks". They have that hungry look about them." His voice whispered in their ears.

"So we're outlaws now, are we?" Foxglove asked with her arms crossed over her chest.

The Sableye shrugged in a movement that was at once both a confirmation and a denial. "Outlaws or no, as long as you buy my merchandise I won't ask any questions. Not many folks stop by my old shop anymore, not since those darn Kecleon brothers built one of their stores here and with the war rationing going on; I'm amazed I'm still in business! If it weren't for my few customers, I'd have packed up a month ago."  
Blaze tapped once on the rough wooden counter to stop the Sableye's rant on his financial woes. "We would like five apples, ten blast seeds and one totter seed."

"That'll be thirty silver Poké." Blaze blinked at the absurdity of the price (there was one hundred Poké in one silver Poké, and one hundred silver Poké in one gold Poké) but paid him. Alex chuckled. "War rations increase the price of my wares. Take it or leave it."

* * *

In times of peace, the Grass Province was the cradle of the Air Continent, lush and fertile and pastoral, but it was a very long while since anyone anywhere had known any peace. Foxglove saw more corpses on the first day than in a month in the mystery dungeons, and for certain no one had thought of burying them. The charred countryside was scattered with wattle cottages, deep ploughed ditches, clear-cut woods, broken fences and tumbledown walls. Smoke was often rising from the horizon.

"They don't deserve me," Foxglove said as she sat down on a rock.

"Us," Her partner prompted, sitting on the ground.

"Most of them wouldn't be alive if it weren't for us!" she spat with revulsion. "And what have they done for us?" Foxglove demanded. "Arceus and the creation trio, we save their lives and they treat us like dog shit!"

Blaze said nothing. There was a pause in the conversation.

"I know a place where we can stay." Foxglove urged. "Well, not exactly... More like somewhere where we can spend the night, more of a brief rest stop before we continue. I don't know the exact location..." She hesitated before quickly adding, "But they should be able to be found all over the Continents."

He should have been warned by her vagueness but he remained oblivious, allowing Foxglove to lead the way.

* * *

They walked into the tavern. "You never told me the Hangman's Jig was a brothel," Blaze said as they walked in.

"There are good rooms and the food is decent."

"You said you knew it well," he said accusingly.

"It's a tavern too," she said defensively.

There was a commotion from a group huddled around the table. "Fuck!" A Furret yelled, stopping momentarily to catch his breath. His middle finger was bleeding, half sliced off. This scene made the spectators cheer at the sight of blood.

A Raichu smiled. "I see you haven't done this before." His accent stuck out, marking him as a native of the Water Province in the Grass Continent.

"I have, Nick," the Furret said as the pain subsided. "Just not in awhile." He grinned toothily. "Your turn."

The Raichu, who was addressed as Nick, reached over and grabbed a knife from the table. Spreading out his fingers, he gripped the knife, and then started. At first it was slow but he went faster, using the 6-5-4-3-2-1 simple method.

"Oh screw you," a Riolu grumbled. This caused Nick's victorious grin to get wider.

Foxglove approached the table and sat down, unsheathing her knife. She flipped and caught it by the handle.

"You want a go? That's a laugh." the Furret giggled before returning to his finger.

Foxglove's face took on a slasher smile, her eyes darkening.

"C'mon, prove 'em wrong, girlie!" a Giraffig urged her. It was blood the outlaws had come to see.

"Blaze! Get over here!" the Treecko called out pleasantly. The Charmander walked over hesitantly, wary of their game. "Put your hand on the table, spread out." his eyes widened but he obeyed her.

Foxglove twirled the knife in the air before flipping it around and catching it by the hilt. When he realised what she was going to do he started stuttering and Foxglove had to restrain him with one arm. She bent over, laying her hand on top of Blaze's with her three fingers on his pinkie, middle finger and thumb. She was perfectly calm but Blaze by contrast was sweating buckets.

She took a deep breath, licked her lips quickly and used the 1-2-1-3-1-4-1-5-1-6-1-5-1-4-1-3-1-2 method, only she started between the thumb and index finger. However, instead of her hand being slow at first, her hand was a blur and got faster, finishing in seconds.

The outlaws thought that she was going to go again and show how fast she was, but instead her hand rose high in the air, and faster than anyone could react to, it was down and _slammed_ against the table right in between Nick's middle and ring finger.

Turning on her heel, Foxglove walked away as the Furret and Nick stared in amazement, and then looked back at each other more than surprised.

"Looks like you've got some competition, Nick." A Solosis finally said.

"What's so good about that?" a Machop slurred, only pausing to swallow another pint of liquor, "she didn't hit any fingers."

"That's kinda the point," a female Pidgeotto said before a finger tapped her shoulder, following the owner of the finger up the ladder.

* * *

The Houndour was still at the table playing polka, that much she could deduce through her open eyelids. But she was not in control of her body. Something else was making her eyes flick slyly from side to side, watching her opponent's faces for the smallest nuance, carefully placing her chosen card down.

The cold wrapped its hands around her and dragged her down. _"Where... Where in the Distortion World am I?"_ Her own voice sounded distorted like she was stuck underwater. However, there was nothing but a murky film covering her eyes as she was trapped inside her body, unable to move even if she wanted to.

"Not a 'where', but a 'why'. You are figuratively asleep and I must say it has worked better than I imagined. If I applied too much pressure on your fragile mind you would drop dead, or worse, into a permanent coma. Too little and you would simply fall asleep, which simply cannot happen at this critical stage, my dear." A familiar voice said.

If Bright Eyes could have turned her head or moved her body in the murk, she was certain she'd have left her skin in a macabre pile on the floor. _'What I still have of it.'_

" _Y-you! What do you want? Why are you here?"_ Bright Eyes screamed. She had lost her supposedly horrific memories and for that she was grateful, but her body shuddered as she remembered the first year after the unholy deal had been forged. In exchange for her memories, voices haunted both her waking life and sleep. _All you have to do,_ Nightshade's voice had whispered, _all you have to do is this... And this... and advance the game. You are needed to block the white castle, and so free the way for the black bishop to threaten the queen._ Whenever Bright Eyes had asked why, Nightshade had replied: _I play a long game._ The Houndour had warned the voice that it was harder to treat people like pieces, as life wasn't as simple as chess.

"Why did you help me?" Bright Eyes had asked the Absol once.

She had looked at her with those queer, blood-red eyes. "I have a tender spot in my heart for crippled and broken things."

The Absol had found her lost on the dark path and saved her, had battered and worn the Houndour's heart smooth until there was practically nothing left. All for the good of many, as the creature had said. She could not remember why she had agreed – but the Absol had done her an irreparable favour by wiping her memory.

"I am not here for past grievances but to advance the game. You are the piece I shall use next." The Absol's voice cold and businesslike. The Houndour could feel it grind along her ears and mind like a rough stone. She opened her mouth in protest, but immediately her tongue felt as if a red-hot iron had been placed on it.

"Do not speak. Your words only become fire on your tongue. Now, if you could be so kind as to do this one little thing for me, you can open your eyes and return to the world of the living." the shadow spoke coldly. "If you are going to help this pathetic world, you will listen to me, Bright Eyes." the Absol scolded.

"Now, I will allow you to regain control of your body, but before I do so you must listen to what I say. I will remain in your head and guide you – you will do _exactly_ what I tell you. But I will allow you some level of freedom, so do not call me unmerciful. You will have your body and you can speak... but I will not allow you to say or do anything to incriminate us. I will simply block it before your muscles, vocal cords and neurons start to form the words or motions. Make no mistake about this, if you disobey me I will forcefully make you play the game... but I won't kill my own castle, merely order it to its place. Believe me, I do not want to do this to you, I really don't." The last sentence sounded almost like the Absol pitied her.

Her voice swiftly changed back to its cold and brisk manner, almost as if she didn't want the shadow of a crack in her protective armour. "There is no point in having a mentally unstable castle – you cannot advance such a piece. In the game, even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you've planned for them."

Bright Eyes pressed her lips together in accepting silence.

"That's better. Now, we can finally get down to business. Do you see that Treecko? The one-eyed Pokémon moving away from the five finger fillet game with the Charmander? Do you see how the Charmander just went outside to use the toilet? How that group watched him go? Now, this is what I want you to do..."

As the Absol explained her task, Bright Eyes assessed her situation. She could call on some heavy training and experience for this. Not intended for tavern brawls, but it would help. Bright Eyes had gone through an unpleasant education. Not just in the army, but stretching right back into childhood. Military children like her went to twenty, maybe thirty new schools in some tough places. All over the Continents. The first day at school, Bright Eyes was a new girl with no status. Lots of first days. She quickly learned how to get status. In dusty, hot schoolyards, in cold, wet schoolyards, Bright Eyes had slugged it out alone. She had got status.

Then in the service, that brutality was refined. Bright Eyes was trained by experts, Pokémon who traced their own training back to the Years of Rage, the War of Independence, and the Crags of Lament. Pokémon who had survived things that Bright Eyes had only read about in books. They taught her methods, details, skills. Above all, they taught her attitude. They taught her that inhibitions would kill her. Hit early, hit hard. Kill with the first blow. Get your retaliation in first. Cheat. The gentlemen who behaved decently weren't there to train anybody. They were already dead.

* * *

Foxglove had got up from the knife game and Blaze had just gone outside to take a piss. She felt a prickling feeling – not quite unease, but it was her gut instinct sounding a warning and it should never be ignored.

"Beware the corruption..." Nightshade whispered. Foxglove flinched slightly at the warning from the enigmatic chess master.

A Kadabra was across the room in two strides and caught hold of her round her waist. His other arm suddenly came from behind and grabbed her around the neck. He lifted Foxglove up, holding her in a vice-like grip, and tried to kiss her. Foxglove slapped out at his face, but he only laughed.

"That's right, you fight me," he roared out in delight. "I don't like me women too willin'."

Foxglove struggled, but he was holding her too tightly to let her get free and, spurred on by strongly voiced encouragement from the other drinkers, he wasn't going to relinquish her.

"Let me go," she shouted, pummelling him with her fists.

A Rhyhorn's arm grabbed her shoulders while a Croconaw's arm started to fondle her private parts. In retaliation Foxglove whipped her head around and sank her teeth into the Croconaw's arm. As she struggled an Ekans started to advance on her. Foxglove broke free of the arms and punched the Ekans in the face, kicking him in the balls for good measure. The Ekans uttered a choking wheeze and folded over, "bitch," he gasped, "Vixen! Bitch!" cupping his abused gentiles. But then an even larger Pokémon appeared. A Machoke. He grabbed Foxglove and spread eagled her over a pipe rail.

She could feel the sudden charge in the air as the onlookers grew excited, and if the Machoke got his way with her, she had no doubt other Pokémon would follow him. But she wasn't going to succumb to rape after all she'd been through. She'd sooner die.

She fought him with every vestige of strength, getting her hands free again to claw his eyes. As he tried to suppress her with a kiss, she bit his lip hard.

"You little hell-cat," he exclaimed, almost in admiration, pausing for a second to wipe blood from his mouth.

Foxglove took the opportunity to buck under him, and managed to get a few inches away to her left. But the Machoke was too quick; he grabbed her tightly again, pinning both her body and her right arm down. Two other Pokémon appeared just behind him smirking.

In a way the sight of the onlookers was even worse than what the Machoke was planning to do to her. The light from the lantern was dim, but she could still see the malicious glee on their faces clearly enough. Her terror grew into fury at their depravity and made her all the more determined not to give them the kind of entertainment they wanted.

Now was the time to intervene. Not for the Treecko, Bright Eyes felt nothing for her, but to intervene because the Absol wanted her to and if the would-be rapists succeeded in their attack then it would be her turn next. Besides, rapists were scum and did not deserve to pollute the air with their breathing.

Bright Eyes took a long silent breath and walked lightly until she was in front of the big Ryhorn. He stared at her. She stared back, calmly. "Knock it off," the Houndour said in a soft voice that chilled Foxglove.

"You wanna go first?" The Machoke offered.

"I said, knock it off." She said again, louder.

"Why?" the Croconaw asked without taking his eyes off the struggling Treecko.

"Hey what's it to you?" A confused Ryhorn asked. "It's none of your business."

"It's wrong." The Houndour said simply.

The Ekans laughed.

"You're acting in a threatening manner, fat boy. But I'm going to give you a choice." Bright Eyes told the Ryhorn.

Foxglove had always been observant, and over the past four months this had become even more finely honed out of necessity. She had noticed several empty bottles lying on the floor when she'd come in. It was too dark to see if there were any bottles within her reach, but Foxglove stretched out her free arm and swept it quickly across the floor while the would-be rapists were conversing with the Houndour.

"A choice of what?" said the Ryhorn, blankly and surprised.

"A choice of exit strategies, fat boy." Bright Eyes said.

"Say what?" he said.

The Croconaw was largely ignoring Foxglove to listen to the conversation around him. This was a good thing because she was jerking her body to get her free hand into the rucksack on her bag, searching for the hilt of her knife. Her other hand was searching for an empty bottle.

"What I mean is this." the Houndour said. "You're going to leave, that's for sure. The question is how you leave. Either you can walk out here by yourself, or these other fat boys behind you can carry you out in a bucket."

"Oh yeah?" the Ryhorn asked.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "I'm going to count to three, OK, so you'd better chose quickly, yeah?"

The Ryhorn glared at her.

Foxglove's fingers closed around a bottle, holding onto it like a lifeline.

"One." she counted.

"We gave you the chance to leave but now I think that we can have some fun with you."

The Treecko's hand closed around her knife hilt.

"Two." she counted.

Foxglove seized the opportunity of the rapists' chatter to tap the bottle sharply against the floor, leaving a broken jagged edge, then with one swift movement she thrust it into the Machoke's neck, just below his ear, with as much force as she could muster.

"No hard feelings, right?" the Ryhorn asked shortly before Foxglove stabbed the Machoke.

The bushy tips of the Houndour's tail turned into hardened steel points. Bright Eyes smiled. "None at all." She leapt into the air, spun, and whacked the Ryhorn full in the face with her Iron Tail.

It was beautifully done. The forehead is a perfect arch in all planes and very strong, and the skull at the front is very thick. It was like getting hit in the face by a bowling bat.

It caved his whole face in, pulping his drill and the bridge between his eyes and smashing his cheekbones, jarring his little brain around. The rock type's legs crumpled and he fell like a puppet with his strings cut, like an ox in the slaughter house, his head cracking on the floor.

At the same time, the Machoke let out a bellow of pain, jerking up on to his knees, his hands going to his neck. Foxglove leaped up off the floor and stood with her hands on her hips, panting from the exertion, looking contemptuously down at her attacker.

The tavern fell silent. The Machoke was still on his knees, blood spurting out between his fingers. His eyes were rolling fearfully, and he was making a horrible gurgling noise in his throat.

A riot broke out. The Kadabra tried to belt the Houndour but the Houndour whacked him in the gut with another Iron Tail. The Kadabra gasped for breath but his attacker didn't let him recover. She reformed her organic metal pipe and cracked him twice over the head with it, the second blow dropping him stone cold.

Meanwhile, Foxglove squeezed her legs together to divert the Croconaw and then kicked him explosively in the jaw. The Treecko's knife flashed and sang as Foxglove pushed it upwards quickly like a lightning bolt. The blade met resistance at first, but pierced the Croconaw's eyeball. It didn't have the chance to go all the way through as the Ekans coiled his body around her neck, his jaws snapping inches from her face.

Foxglove rammed her knife at the snake's neck, leaving a long red gash. The Ekans hurriedly uncoiled himself to get away from her, slithering out of range.

A silver spike sliced through the air, aimed at her. Foxglove didn't have enough time to move and she felt the blade enter her left shoulder. Foxglove gasped in pain, resisting dropping to her knees, as the weapon pierced her shoulder, going all of the way through. As she felt blood seep down her arm her opponents stood there with triumphant looks on their faces.

"Well, I guess that that settles it." The one-eyed Croconaw taunted, smirking.

Foxglove pulled the blade out of her shoulder. "Not really," she chuckled, moving her clenched fist up, kicking the Pokémon in the chin. His head jerked back with a crack, breaking his neck.

The Machoke yelled back while punching the floor where Foxglove had been a second earlier. The Houndour leapt onto the Machoke's back, her long fangs ripping into his neck. The salivating jaws closed around the place where the spine met the skull. The dog wrenched her head to the side, taking the spine out where her teeth were closed around it. The Machoke's corpse sank to the floor, taking the Houndour with him. The dog glared at the watching crowd balefully from atop her opponent's corpse.

"Let that be a lesson to you," Foxglove said between her teeth, and kicked out at the Ekans, who, unable to stand another kick to the balls, collapsed and merely lay there gasping and choking.

She turned to the rest of the crowd, the bloody knife in her hand. They moved back a step or two, assuming by her bared teeth that she was going to attack them too. For a moment she wanted to, but they reminded her of Rattata. Like them, these Pokémon all had sharp features and a furtive manner. They preyed on the weak too. They were despicable and beneath her contempt.

' _These are,'_ she thought, _'without doubt some of the Air Continent's worst villains and thugs, hard-bitten whores and the most cunning of thieves.'_ She could sense a dangerous undercurrent flowing around in the tavern – jealousy, sexual frustration, pent-up violence and unsettled old scores, simmering as people drank.

Bright Eyes stared at the surviving knot of men. "Who's next?" she said. "But this is like cards now, its doubles or quits. This guy," Bright Eyes said as she kicked the Machop, "is going to the hospital, maybe six weeks with a metal mask. And the other one won't die but he'll have a nasty scar. So the next guy gets twelve weeks in the hospital, you understand that? Couple of smashed elbows, right? So who's next?"

There was no reply.

"If any one of you bastards even thinks of touching me again, I'll kill you," Foxglove snarled at them.

The Pokémon cowered. The Houndour hit them again for good measure before looking at Foxglove, concerned. "You okay?"

"Yeah," the Treecko muttered. She started to leave but she passed one of the would-be rapists. She stopped and punched him in the mouth, splitting her knuckles to the bone. Blood trickled from his split lip. "Rot in hell, the lot of you." she snarled.

"Good one, gecko," the Houndour congratulated her. She was tough even by the standards of outlaws. Hard-muscled. Eyes cunning and mean.

Now that she and her rescuer were standing face to face, Foxglove could see the long, white scar like a white sun-bleached bone. It started just above her right eyebrow, went through the eyebrow and jerked left, crossing the bridge of her muzzle, cutting under and just missing her right eye before finally veering down to her mouth, pulling it down to make it look like the left side of her face was permanently snarling. It looked deliberate. Foxglove quickly looked away. The Houndour might not like Pokémon staring at it.

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me." The Houndour snapped. "I did it because I don't like rapists." She shrugged. "Now if you would excuse me, I am going off to resume my game." With that the mutt sauntered off, adding as an afterthought to the barman offhandedly, as if talking about a spilt tankard: "Clean up that mess."

"Just one question." Foxglove asked. "What is your name?"

"Bright Eyes. My name is Bright Eyes." She liked that question. It always made her feel sane, more secure.

* * *

That night, before she retired, the scarred Houndour marched purposefully towards the Treecko as she headed up the bedrooms. She yipped to the gecko to make her turn around. "I'm no good with speeches or anything like that. To put it bluntly, I'm joining your team." The Houndour spoke gruffly and in clipped tones, as if she had a blade pressed against her throat.

"Why?"

"Because I feel like you need all the help you can get. I feel that it might make the time go by quicker because right now there's nothing to do, and I'm bored." Bright Eyes strode up to Foxglove and poked her in the chest. "But here's something you should know about me. I'm a killer and I've seen, suffered, witnessed and done things that would make most sick. You want someone dead? I'm who you ask. Ethics? Morality? Conscience? Funny how they all go out the airlock when we need something.

"Be my friend and you won't have to worry about watching your back. But I sure as hell don't trust you, and you don't trust me. The feeling's mutual. I might kill some people while travelling and you'll need to be okay with that. I promise not to make a habit out of it. I kill when I need to. I'm a good Pokémon who's killed bad people, and good, I won't deny it."

"How do I know I can trust you?" Foxglove questioned harshly.

"You don't," Bright Eyes retorted equally harshly. "Anyone who argues with me can meet me face to face on a field of their choosing. Do we have a deal?"

Foxglove and Blaze needed allies and here was a powerful one with nothing better to do. She admittedly did have her own set of morals, but it was better than nothing. "Deal," she agreed.

Bright Eyes nodded abruptly. "Good. I'll get a room next to yours. See you in the morning."

* * *

"Disobedience weakens the pack and eats at the ground underneath their feet. The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack. Phase Two is almost ready to be initiated... I cannot allow any weaknesses that _she_ can exploit. Foxglove risks the entire operation because of her wilfulness. As with any good teacher, there shall be lessons as well as guidance... And I might have to be harsh, taking the urgency of my operation into account."


End file.
